This Iconic Sci-Fi Franchise Has Two Masterpieces, and They Both Flopped at the Box Office

There is a sci-fi masterpiece that is looked at as one of the greatest movies in the genre, but it flopped terribly at the box office when it was released. Even more shocking is that, despite its prestigious reputation, a sequel that came out decades later also flopped at the box office, even though it was also a fantastic follow-up from one of sci-fi’s best directors. This isn’t really unusual, either. When it comes to sci-fi movies, it is often hard for them to find an audience in theaters without a big franchise backing them up. An example is John Carpenter’s The Thing, which was a colossal failure that cost Carpenter future jobs, but a decade later was praised as one of the best sci-fi horror movies of all time.

This actually happened twice that year. While fans were making E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial a massive hit in theaters as a family-friendly sci-fi movie, both The Thing and Blade Runner ended up as box office bombs. Despite this, all three movies are now beloved classics.

Blade Runner Became a Masterpiece After Flopping at the Box Office

In 1979, Ridley Scott proved to be a fantastic director of sci-fi when he released Alien. That sci-fi horror movie ended up as a great success and spawned a successful franchise. Three years later, Scott followed it up with a more cerebral sci-fi movie called Blade Runner, and it ended up as a box office bomb. Blade Runner was a film noir sci-fi movie about a law enforcement officer known as a Blade Runner, who hunted down clones called Replicants when they escaped into society and tried to live an actual life of their own.

Harrison Ford starred as Rick Deckard, the Blade Runner, and he was sent to terminate several Replicants that had returned to Earth illegally, with the final one being a Replicant named Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer). The film had some deep questions about what it means to be human, and what makes a Replicant’s desire to experience life and love so wrong in society. The final moments when Roy Batty explains everything he had seen in his short life were tremendous and made Rick rethink everything he knew about humanity.

However, even with a low $30 million budget, Blade Runner was a disappointment at the box office. With the director of Alien and one of the stars of Star Wars involved, it was expected to be a hit, but thanks to competition from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, it was buried at the box office.

That said, time was kind to Blade Runner, and it earned a reputation as one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made. It also remained in the news because the studio kept releasing different versions of the movie on home video, including the Workprint, the International Cut, the Director’s Cut, and finally, the Final Cut. With an 89% Rotten Tomatoes critics score and an even higher 91% from the audience, it clearly deserves its prestigious reputation.

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Blade Runner 2099 Also Failed Despite Original’s Reputation

In 2017, the Blade Runner sequel arrived in theaters. It was 35 years later, but Blade Runner 2049 had one big thing going for it. Denis Villeneuve directed the film, with Harrison Ford returning after all these years as Rick Deckard. It also starred Ryan Gosling as a Replicant programmed to hunt down other Replicants, although the film soon found him questioning his own place in the world and what it really means to be human.

It was very similar in themes to the first movie and was beautifully shot, which is expected from Villeneuve. However, sadly, audiences once again ignored the franchise film. Villeneuve got an astronomically high $150-$185 million to shoot the movie, and it made $276.6 million worldwide. However, since only $92.1 million came in North America, it was considered a disappointment.

That said, like the first movie, critics loved it, with an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score, and the audience score matched that exactly, with an 88% Popcornmeter rating. Part of the problem came with the movie checking in at almost three hours in length, which was way too long for a cerebral sci-fi movie with little action. However, it earned Villeneuve a chance to direct Dune, which was a much bigger success story for the director. Regardless of its box office disappointment, the Blade Runner franchise is two-for-two with masterpiece releases and deserves its spot in history as two of the best sci-fi movies ever made.

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