2026 has been one of the first years of the decade when it has felt like maybe, just maybe, that the movies are back. Attendance in theaters has been steadily rising, but some of the biggest hits of the year have been surprising pundits and studios with the level of success they’ve achieved. Amazon MGM Studios’ Project Hail Mary has become one of the biggest movies of the year, delaying its streaming release because audiences continued to show up in theaters. The biggest story, though, is the indie horror hit Obsession, which is on track to become one of the most successful horror movies in the history of Hollywood (making over $287 million globally on a $750k budget).
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There is obviously a flipside to this, though, with plenty of films that have arrived during this bustling time at theaters and been met with only the sound of crickets chirping. Though some films, like the science fiction movie Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, can be described as a bomb thanks to earning $9.3 million on a budget of $20 million, it pales in comparison to some of the bombs that have arrived this year. Though we’re only halfway through 2026, these failures have quickly made headlines for the jaw-dropping amounts of money lost.
5) Animal Farm
An animated adaptation of George Orwell’s book directed by Andy Serkis was first revealed to the world in 2012, and the fact that it took fourteen years for the film to finally make it into theaters should have been the first sign that this movie was in a bit of trouble. After going through a few different distributors, including Netflix at one point, the film finally arrived in theaters to dismal reviews and boasted a reported budget around $35 million.
Animal Farm played in theaters for 35 days, making the bulk of its $5.5 million at the domestic box office in the first ten days. All told, Animal Farm has potentially lost at least $29 million, comparing the reported budget to the box office haul, a number that doesn’t factor in the marketing and acquisition costs by Angel Studios.
4) The Bride!
After Maggie Gyllenhaal’s first movie, The Lost Daughter, became an Oscar nominee and critical darling, everyone wanted to work with the actress turned director. Her follow-up film, The Bride!, a punk retelling of the Frankenstein story set against the backdrop of Chicago, was even set up at Netflix, which eventually dropped the project over budget concerns. Lucky for them, WB swooped in and wanted to add the bold film to their robust library.
With a reported budget of $90 million, The Bride!‘s bizarre tone and distinct style made it a tough sell. Was it a comedy? A melodrama? A feminist screed? A tribute to monster movies through a trippy lens? All of the above? In any event, the film divided critics and brought in $24 million globally, potentially losing at least $66 million for the studio. The good news for Gyllenhaal as a filmmaker, though, is The Bride! seems destined to be a cult hit, the kind of success that you can’t buy.
3) Melania
The box office numbers of a documentary are typically the kind of numbers that any pundit won’t really pay much mind to, considering the niche appeal of the format itself for regular moviegoers compared to critics as well as the fact that they seldom carry major budgets. About the only time documentaries are a piece of the box office discussion is when they become surprising successes, like Michael Moore’s films or something like March of the Penguins.
To that end, a documentary fully being capable of being classified as a box office bomb is a very rare feat, but Amazon MGM managed it with the film about first lady Melania Trump. Directed by Brett Ratner as his first movie since a series of sexual assault allegations tanked his Hollywood career, the self-titled movie arrived just before Ratner himself appeared in unredacted photos from The Epstein Files. Acquired by Amazon for $40 million, a figure that may not account for the actual production costs, Melania brought in $16.7 million at the global box office, meaning the movie has potentially lost, at minimum, $23.3 million.
2) Masters of the Universe
Not to keep picking on Amazon MGM Studios with a one-two punch, but two of the biggest bombs of the year are theirs to claim (on top of one of the biggest hits, Project Hail Mary). It had been almost forty years since He-Man appeared in movie theaters, and despite many attempts in that time to revive the property, it quickly became a franchise that languished in development hell for decades. Though the movie has finally arrived, it has proven that perhaps Masters of the Universe has become a niche property over the years.
The reported budget on the new Masters of the Universe movie is par for the course with summer blockbusters in 2026, boasting a price tag in the neighborhood of $200 million. That said, the film has brought in just north of $86 million at the global box office so far, meaning Masters of the Universe has potentially lost at least $114 million, a factor that doesn’t even include the marketing and advertising spend for the movie.
1) Desert Warrior
If Obsession’s box office success is the biggest story for movie nerds that…obsess over the box office in 2026, the inverse of that is the new Anthony Mackie-starring film, Desert Warrior. Directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), the Marvel actor stars alongside Sharlto Copley in an adventure film that set the record for the most expensive movie ever produced in Saudi Arabia. Boasting a $150 million production budget, Desert Warrior finished filming in 2022 but languished in post-production until finally arriving in theaters in 2026.
If you’ve never heard of Desert Warrior, though, and never saw it playing at your local theater, you and almost everyone else in the entire world are in the same boat. Boasting a dismal 26% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Desert Warrior only played in theaters in the United States for two weeks and brought in just north of $733k at the global box office. As a result, the film has potentially lost, at minimum, $149 million. A loss of this size puts the film in the shared territory of worst box office bombs in film history, sitting alongside the likes of The Flash, Battleship, and Joker: Folie ร Deux.
