Matthew Vaughn’s “Argylle” has become the first major box office flop of 2024. The action-comedy, backed by Apple and distributed by Universal Pictures, only opened to $17 million during its domestic debut and might not even make it to $100 million worldwide by the end of its run. For a $200 million production that boasts a star-studded cast with Henry Cavill, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Samuel L. Jackson and more, these box office numbers are more or less disastrous. Negative reviews (the film holds a 32% from 255 reviews) surely didn’t help make “Argylle” a must-see for audiences. The film joins a long list of Hollywood misfires, but they are not all created equally. In many unfortunate cases, even great films become box office flops.
No wonder Martin Scorsese went viral several years ago for railing against the industry’s obsession with box office numbers, particularly Hollywood’s tendency to judge films based on the strength of their opening weekend grosses.
“Since the ’80s, there’s been a focus on numbers. It’s kind of repulsive,” Scorsese once said. “The cost of a movie is one thing. Understand that a film costs a certain amount, they expect to at least get the amount back… The emphasis is now on numbers, cost, the opening weekend, how much it made in the U.S.A., how much it made in England, how much it made in Asia, how much it made in the entire world, how many viewers it got. As a filmmaker, and as a person who can’t imagine life without cinema, I always find it really insulting.”
Edgar Wright is another major who has taken a stance against box office valuation in recent years, once telling fans, “The three-day weekend is not the end of the story for any movie. People shouldn’t buy into that idea. Rating films by their box office is like the football fan equivalent to films. Most of my favorite films that are considered classics today were not considered hits in their time.”
Even Christopher Nolan recently told the AP that you can’t judge a film in weekends. “I know for myself the life of the movie is a much longer proposition in that, you look at other people’s films and indeed your own films in decades, not in weekends,” he said. “I think the science fiction genre is the one where the long view is everything. People revisit. They value science fiction in a very long-term way. The original ‘Blade Runner,’ nobody paid any attention to it on release, it was famously a flop. Then over time, people like myself (found it). I think I was 13 when I first saw a VHS tape.”
These acclaimed filmmakers certainly have a point, as many of the most critically acclaimed films this century got their starts as box office flops. Be it “Children of Men” or “The Master” or “Under the Skin,” it’s become abundantly clear that you can’t judge a movie by its gross. Below, Variety offers a selection of great films that flopped at the box office.
