One of the biggest movie flops of 2024 is Joker: Folie à Deux.
While Francis Ford Coppola is doing his damnedest to rival Todd Phillips with his doomed epic Megalopolis, Folie à Deux is truly a surprising turn. As of writing, it has finally turned a profit ($201 million worldwide box-office earnings on an approximately $200 million budget), a far cry from what studio execs expected from the follow-up to 2019’s billion-dollar box office juggernaut, Joker.
Although Folie à Deux has been panned by both critics and fans, it still has earned a lot of money. That got us thinking: What are the other films like Folie à Deux—movies that were critical failures but commercial successes? And how successful can bad movies really be? Turns out, very successful. For this list, we scoured releases from the 2000s with a Rotten Tomatoes critics score below 35% that somehow made more than $100 million.
So, here are 15 awful films that, despite their bad directing or bad pacing or bad writing, still sprinted to the bank from the box office.
14.Madame Web
Director: S.J. Clarkson
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor
Released: February 14, 2024
Budget: $80m
Earnings: $100m
Rotten Tomatoes: 11% (Critics), 56% (Audience)
If you were asked to guess which movies were on this list, you’d likely have Madame Web near the top. The notoriously bad film was memed to the point that people thought star Dakota Johnson said things about it that she didn’t. (A Mandela Effect, or, Madame-la effect, as it were.) The headline for the New York Times review read: “Dakota Johnson Can’t Save This Spidey Spinoff.”
And yet … the film still made more money than it cost to create, partly due to the appeal of Dakota Johnson, partly due to audiences wanting to see something so-bad-it’s-good, and partly due, of course, to the Marvel of it all. While it’s not the biggest earner on this list, it is one of the worst in recent memory and it still snatched a bag, earning it a spot here.
13.Alice Through the Looking Glass
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Cast: Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona
Released: April 1, 2022
Budget: $75 million
Box Office: $167 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 15% (Critics), 71% (Audience)
You’ve got to respect the thought that went into Sony Pictures’ Morbius. Rather than continue to do battle within multiple Spider-Man multiverses to benefit from the web-slinger’s fandom, the company decided to cash-in on a different Marvel character in the Spidey-verse, Dr. Michael Morbius.
Unfortunately, that’s where the good ideas ended. Fans and critics alike found the movie’s plot confusing and full of convoluted time-jumps—and that’s just the first 10 minutes. And then’s there the absolutely baffling post-credits Michael Keaton Vulture cameo, something that hasn’t materialized in any meaningful way since the film’s release. In the face of all of this adversity, somehow the film still grossed almost twice its budget. Judging from the return and the Rotten Tomatoes audience score, I guess we all just really wanted to see Jared Leto again after Suicide Squad…
12.G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Director: Stephen Sommers
Cast: Channing Tatum, Dennis Quaid, Adewale Akinnuuoye-Agbaje
Released: August 7, 2009
Budget: ~$175 million
Box Office: $302.5 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 33% (Critics), 50% (Audience)
Look, there’s definitely an audience for over-the-top action fests like G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But that doesn’t mean they’re good movies.
The Rise of Cobra has thin characters and an even thinner plot, relying on the same cartoonishness that the action sequences are saddled with. While there was some actual effort put into the first Transformers movie, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra just feels like a lazy way to capitalize on another popular toy brand. Unfortunately, no amount of explosions can distract you from that feeling when the ending credits begin to roll. Of course, that didn’t stop the creation of a sequel and a Snake Eyes spin-off, with a rumored Transformers-G.I. Joe crossover on the way.
11.Ice Age: Collision Course
Director: Mike Thurmeier
Cast: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary
Released: July 22, 2016
Budget: $105 million
Box Office: $408 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 18% (Critics), 39% (Audience)
The fifth entry in the Ice Age series, Collision Course was a bomb in North America, only recouping its budget thanks to worldwide box office numbers. Where Ice Age, Ice Age 2, and Ice Age 3 had a charm and warmth about them, Collision Course fails to capitalize on the same winning traits of protagonists Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo), and Diego (Denis Leary), all of whom are reduced to one-dimensional stereotypes of their former characterizations.
This is before we even dive into jokes about hashtags and a subplot involving Scrat (Chris Wedge) in outer space, the sorts of gimmicks that really wear on you even if you once loved these characters and their world. Despite its excellent animation, this film is a major dud that just doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the movies in the series.
10.The Mummy
Director: Alex Kurtzman
Cast: Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Annabelle Wallis
Released: June 9, 2017
Budget: ~$125 million
Box Office: $409.2 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 15% (Critics), 35% (Audience)
Justice for Brendan Fraser! Rebooting The Mummy with Tom Cruise was a confusing choice, considering how iconic the original film series was. And boy oh boy, does it look like the studio execs reaped what they sowed with this one.
Tonally, the film can’t decide what it wants to be. Is it a monster movie thriller? A campy action-adventure fantasy à la 1999’s The Mummy? Both? Neither? With no clear foundation, the film just becomes a baffling Tom Cruise vehicle. Tom Cruise is still Tom Cruise, though, so the movie made well over its starting budget.
9.Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Director: Betty Thomas
Cast: Zachary Levi, David Cross, Jason Lee
Released: December 23, 2009
Budget: $70 million
Box Office: $443 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 21% (Critics), 49% (Audience)
Just because a movie’s aimed at kids doesn’t mean the bar should be this low. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel is a clear cash grab, and a successful one at that—even if its slow stakes and uninspired jokes make it an insufferable watch.
What’s worse than a Robert De Niro impersonation in a kids movie? A Robert De Niro impersonation delivered in high-pitched chipmunk speak in a kids movie. Shockingly, Fox execs viewed this as their “secret weapon” at the box office, in case James Cameron’s Avatar was dead on arrival. Which, obviously, it wasn’t.
8.The Smurfs
Director: Raja Gosnell
Cast: Hank Azaria, Neil Patrick Harris, Jayma Mays
Released: July 29, 2011
Budget: ~$110 million
Box Office: $563.7 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 21% (Critics), 43% (Audienec)
Another kids movie, another squandered-yet-talented cast. Like other family movies on this list, The Smurfs isn’t bad because it’s aimed at kids; it’s bad because it thinks the only things kids like is potty humor and that parents will put up with thinly veiled jokes aimed at them. No, the Smurfs “swearing” by saying things like “What the Smurf?” isn’t funny.
Combine that with a laundry list of product placement for everything from Samsung Blu-ray players (get it, blue?) to Guitar Hero to M&Ms, and you’ve got more of a Saturday morning cartoon block (complete with commercials) than a movie.
7.Fifty Shades of Grey
Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle
Released: February 13, 2015
Budget: $40 million
Box Office: $571 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 25% (Critics), 41% (Audience)
Yes, the fan-fiction reworking of another film on this list also made the cut for one of the most successful bad movies of the 2000s. Inspired by Stephanie Meyers’s Twilight series, the Dakota Johnson-led Fifty Shade of Grey looks and feels exactly like its source material. One of the biggest criticisms of this movie adaptation is that it’s so mid in comparison to E. L. James’ books, which made headlines for pushing BDSM sex into mainstream reader’s homes.
That isn’t to say that a better adaptation would necessarily have made for a better movie, though. The novel was famously referred to as making “Twilight look like War and Peace,” so there was only so much that a cinematic version of Fifty Shades could accomplish. Whatever the case, looking at its box office performance, you could definitely say that this film accomplished something: big money.
6.The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Director: Chris Weitz
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Released: November 20, 2009
Budget: $50 million
Box Office: $709.7 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 28% (Critics), 61% (Audience)
Obviously, the Twilight movies are aimed at a certain audience, but that doesn’t mean they have to be so cringe. Even with vampires, werewolves, and love triangles, this film feels dull and long—and it’s only a little over two hours! When New Moon isn’t moving at a glacial pace, it’s inadvertently hilarious, like the moment when Bella (Kristen Stewart) somehow gives herself a papercut opening a gift and then Edward (Robert Pattinson) throws her across the room to protect her from his hungry relatives. It could all read as campy, melodramatic fun if the movie wasn’t so self-serious.
In the end, though, it didn’t matter whether you were team Edward or team Jacob (Taylor Lautner), since audiences ensured the film made almost 15 times its budget. Talk about running to the bank.
5.Suicide Squad
Director: David Ayer
Cast: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie
Released: August 5, 2016
Budget: ~$175 million
Box Office: $746.8 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 26% (Critics), 58% (Audience)
Not to be confused with James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad in 2021, 2016’s Suicide Squad by director David Ayer was an absolute mess from start to finish. With one-dimensional characters, a wasted cast, and editing so bad that the storytelling suffered as a result, this entry into the DC Extended Universe was an absolute dud.
You know a movie is bad when it basically gets remade five years later and only a few of the original cast members are invited back. It’s hard to believe that Jared Leto is an Academy Award winner seeing him in movies like this and Morbius, but whether we like him or not, maybe he’s a secret weapon to rescue bad movies.
4.The Da Vinci Code
Director: Ron Howard
Cast: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen
Released: May 19, 2006
Budget: $125 million
Box Office: $758 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 25% (Critics), 57% (Audience)
Another best-selling book whose movie adaptation flopped with audiences, even as it made millions at the box office. Based on Dan Brown’s novel of the same name, what was thrilling on the page quickly turned silly when charted out in live-action across two-and-a-half hours.
Where the book could delve heavily into art history and Christianity while remaining thrilling, all of that suspense is missing from this underwhelming and tedious adaptation. It’s telling when even Tom Hanks can’t save a movie; The Da Vinci Code is number three in the actor’s 10 worst-reviewed films of all time on Rotten Tomatoes. But could it be that rotten if it made bank?
3.Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Director: Joachim Rønning
Cast: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Javier Bardem
Release: May 26, 2017
Budget: $230 million
Box Office: $794 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 30% (Critics), 60% (Audience)
Walt Disney famously stated that “it all started with a mouse.” But by the time you get to the fifth entry in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, it’s easy to forget that these films all started with a theme park ride. Like other movies on this list, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is more of a tired retread than a fully conceived motion picture.
The sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel, viewers are once again treated to swashbuckling action sequences and Johnny Depp’s performance as the aloof Captain Jack Sparrow—the only enjoyable aspects this entry has to offer. It’s a testament to how much audiences enjoy Depp and sword-swinging that the film made as much as it did, 14 years after the release of the original.
2.Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel
Released: June 24, 2009
Budget: ~$200 million
Box Office: $836 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 19% (Critics), 57% (Audience)
Michael Bay’s 2007 Transformers film wasn’t the most novel summer release, but it sure was a helluva lot more fun than its migraine-inducing 2009 follow-up, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. As loud as it is frenetic, Revenge of the Fallen feels like the big-screen equivalent of watching two 6-year-old boys throw their Transformers toys at each other for two-and-a-half hours.
Clearly, there’s an audience for that, as the film grossed four times its budget—and, to be fair, nobody does big-budget blockbusters quite like Bay. While Transformers had some semblance of plot and character development, Revenge of the Fallen throws all of that out the window in favor of explosions ad nauseam.
1.Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams
Released: March 25, 2016
Budget: ~$250 million
Box Office: $873.6 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 29% (Critics), 63% (Audience)
Where the MCU is a bright and colorful utopia of sorts, the DCEU is a grim and brooding wasteland. That sort of treatment might have worked fine in Nolan’s imaginings of Gotham City, but something about it being applied to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice just completely weighs the movie down.
There are great actors and a lot of potential in this film, which is maybe why this movie is so disappointing. When one of your leading actor’s dissociative sadness goes viral, it pretty much sums up whether or not the film is worth watching—and yet, it still made close to a billion dollars globally.
Which of these films is undeserving of its box office haul and which deserves a second look? How much should we read into the fact that two Johnny Depp movies, two Jared Leto movies, and two Dakota Johnson movies appear on this list? Will DC ever get it right without Christopher Nolan at the helm? Sound off in the comments.