With her latest film flailing at the box office, some detractors are saying Margot Robbie’s star is losing its shine – but she’s not the only actor to have a few duds on their resume.
Robbie’s latest film, Babylon, made $US3.5 million ($5.1 million) across the US and Canada over its Christmas weekend debut – far below its reported budget of about $US80 million ($118 million).
While the film is yet to be fully released internationally, its poor performance at the box office so far has set tongues wagging as it comes just a couple of months after the another Robbie-starring flick, Amsterdam, opened to a reported loss totalling $US 97 million ($143 million).
No one is pinning the sole blame for the poor box office performances on Robbie, who is just one in a number of famous faces associated with the films (think Brad Pitt and Christian Bale).
But there are concerns the Australian actor isn’t the major drawcard she’s been credited as since her success with projects like I, Tonya and Birds of Prey.
The back-to-back cinema duds have led to some speculation that Robbie is in her ‘flop era’; but this doesn’t spell her doom.
With Hollywood pumping out hundreds of movies a year, not every single one can be a success story. This means there are plenty of big-name actors with skeletons in their closets – or in this case, their IMDB pages.
Read on to find out about four of the biggest flops in the last 20 years led by actors that continued to hold their place on the A-list.
Green Lantern (2011)
Ryan Reynolds
Reynolds’ looked to ride the superhero wave as the genre was revving up following the success of the initial Iron Man films and ahead of the release of the first Avengers instalment.
But, as has become par for the course for many DC adaptations, Green Lantern fell afoul of the box office, critics and comic fans alike.
The results were so bad, fellow actor David Harbour reached out to Reynolds for advice when it became apparent his own 2019 film, Hellboy, was going to bomb.
“I called him and I was like, ‘Hey man, I just need to know something. You know Green Lantern? Huge flop for you. What the f*** is that like, because I think I’m going to hit that right now. Am I gonna be okay? Am I gonna survive this?'” Harbour told GQ.
To his credit, Reynolds was “sweet” about it, and has poked fun at the experience himself, announcing on Twitter in 2021 that he was watching the film for the first time – armed with his Aviation Gin.
Green Lantern was followed by another flop in the form of 2013’s R.I.P.D., but Reynolds has since become one of Hollywood’s go-to leading men and box office catnip, thanks in no small part to his star-making turn in the titular role of 2018’s Deadpool.
Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum
With a production budget of at least $US150 million ($222 million), which doesn’t include marketing costs, the film only made about $US45 million ($66 million) at the US box office.
It fared better internationally, but was still a major disappointment for an original story that hoped to compete with a flood of well-established franchises and reboots.
While appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast this year, Kunis revealed this year she knew Jupiter Ascending wouldn’t be a success when the film’s budget was “slashed in half” before principal photography started.
“Right before pre-production, for a multitude of reasons with studios and other things, the budget got cut, and the movie was different,” she said.
The Mummy (2017)
Tom Cruise
Intended to kickstart Universal’s ‘Dark Universe’ franchise, The Mummy was a failure at the domestic box office even with the benefit of Cruise’s established star-power.
The film brought in $US80 million ($118 million) on a reported budget of $US125 million ($185 million) domestically, before finding some redemption in the global box office – but seemingly not enough to make the franchise viable despite the following (lower-budget) Dark Universe film The Invisible Man becoming a hit in 2020.
This year, The Mummy‘s director, co-writer and producer Alex Kurtzman went so far as to call it “the biggest failure” of his life both personally and professionally.
Cats (2019)
Judi Dench, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, and more
With a star-studded cast and long history of Broadway success behind it, Cats should have been one of the most successful movies of the year.
But while audiences were fine with actors dressed as cats prancing around on stage, they were apparently unimpressed with CGI human-cat hybrids.
The film was one of the biggest failures of the year, but the fact has hardly dented the careers of the top-billed actors since.
Although to be fair, many had a history of success to cushion the blow, and they’ve all seemed to move on with nary a backwards glance.
