The Biggest Hollywood Flops of 2026 So Far

The most complete financial failure of the modern era, and it is not close. Rupert Wyatt's seventh-century Arabian epic, starring Anthony Mackie and Ben Kingsley, was the most expensive film ever produced in Saudi Arabia at a reported $150 million — and it grossed around $734,000 worldwide. That is a recovery rate of under half of one per cent. It had been shot in 2022 and sat unreleased for four years, which is usually the tell.

Thirty-nine years after the Dolph Lundgren version, Amazon MGM spent a reported $170 million on He-Man and got $113.8 million back — $64.8 million of it domestic — after a second weekend that fell 71 per cent. The problem was legible in the tracking months out: the property's affection is held almost entirely by adults in their forties, and the film was sold to children who have no relationship with it. A sequel was greenlit anyway, weeks later.

A $170 million budget and $125.9 million worldwide, which for the second film of a relaunched DC slate is the worst possible result — not disastrous enough to be a talking point, not good enough to build on. It opened in June against a crowded superhero-fatigued market and never found a second weekend.

Maggie Gyllenhaal's Bride of Frankenstein reimagining, with Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley, made for a reported $90 million and released in March. Trade outlets disagree substantially on what it took — Looper carries $13 million worldwide, other reporting has put it as high as $24 million — and on either figure it is one of the largest losses of the year. It is the entry on this list most likely to be re-evaluated: prestige films that die theatrically often find their audience later.

Amazon MGM's documentary about the former first lady, on a reported combined production and marketing spend of around $75 million against $17 million in ticket sales. Documentaries do not usually get $40 million theatrical rollouts, and the reason this one did has more to do with a licensing deal than with any projection of how many people wanted to see it in a cinema.

The awkward one. Disney's live-action Moana grossed $264.7 million on a reported $250 million budget — which is a loss after marketing, but is also more than every other film on this list combined. It belongs here because of the opportunity cost rather than the shortfall: the animated original made $687 million, and the remake programme was built on the premise that the remakes do better than the originals.

Andy Serkis's long-gestating animated Orwell adaptation, a reported $35 million, and $5 million back. It had been in development for well over a decade. Whatever the film's merits, an animated political allegory has no obvious audience in a market where animation is sold almost exclusively to families with young children.

A $30 million dialogue-free Detroit revenge thriller with Alan Ritchson, released in July, $2.8 million worldwide. Films this stylistically committed are usually made for a fraction of this budget, which is the whole problem — at $5 million it would have been a cult success rather than a write-off.

Michael Sarnoski's take on the legend, with Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer, on a reported $20 million against $6.07 million. A comparatively small loss in absolute terms and a notable one in reputational ones — Sarnoski made A Quiet Place: Day One and Pig, and this was the film that was supposed to establish him at scale.

A24's pop-star melodrama with Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel, reported at $20 million against $3 million. It arrived in April with a soundtrack by Charli XCX and Jack Antonoff and no clear sense of who it was for — the year's clearest example of a film that would have been a streaming release in any other season.