The 2020s have been a masterclass in burning money. Studios spent over $1.5 billion on movies that ranged from "disappointing" to "how did anyone say yes to this?" Here's the definitive damage report — ranked by the sheer audacity of the waste.
10. Atlas (2024) — $100M
Netflix gave $100M to a movie about Jennifer Lopez in a mech suit fighting AI. The script is generated-by-AI ironic. Nobody asked for this. Nobody watched this. Netflix counted the autoplay views and called it content.
9. Morbius (2022) — $75M
Sony spent $75M on a Spider-Man villain nobody cared about, starring Jared Leto doing his "intense actor" thing. It became a meme. It got re-released because of the memes. It bombed again. Even the internet's ironic support couldn't save it.
8. Madame Web (2024) — $80M
Sony learned nothing from Morbius and spent $80M on a psychic Spider-Woman movie that makes Morbius look like The Dark Knight. Dakota Johnson visibly did not want to be there. Neither did audiences. Sony is speedrunning bad decisions.
7. Moonfall (2022) — $146M
Roland Emmerich somehow convinced someone to give him $146M to make a movie about the moon falling on Earth. The moon. Falling. For $146M. At some point, someone in a boardroom had the power to say no and chose not to. That person should also consider a donut shop.
6. Wish (2023) — $200M
Disney's 100th anniversary celebration movie. $200M. And it's... completely forgettable. A Disney Channel original with a theatrical budget. The animation style nobody asked for. Songs nobody remembers. Characters nobody cares about. Happy birthday, Disney. Here's a flop.
5. Argylle (2024) — $200M
Apple spent $200M on a spy movie with a CGI cat. Two hundred million dollars. A CGI cat. The budget of this movie exceeds the GDP of several small nations, and it couldn't clear $100M at the box office worldwide. The hubris required to greenlight this should be studied in business schools.
4. Jurassic World Dominion (2022) — $185M
$185M and they still can't write a Jurassic Park movie as good as Spielberg's $63M original from 1993. Nostalgia bait: bring back the original cast, throw in some giant locusts (why?), and hope people don't notice the story is nonsensical. We noticed.
3. Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) — $200M
$200M to fumble a Harry Potter franchise. A franchise that should have been a layup. Confusing plot, cast controversies, a story nobody can follow, and a box office that dropped with each installment. Warner Bros. killed the golden goose by asking it to lay too many eggs.
2. Rebel Moon (2023) — $166M
Netflix gave Zack Snyder $166M to make his "Star Wars." He delivered a slow-motion-heavy, personality-free knockoff that critics scored at 21% and audiences forgot about by the following weekend. And there are TWO of these. Netflix paid for TWO.
1. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) — $200M
The most wasteful of them all, because this was supposed to be important. This was supposed to launch the next phase of the MCU. $200M on the movie that would introduce the new Thanos. And they got... a green screen void, a forgettable villain arc, and ants. The MCU's credibility took more damage from this movie than from any multiverse villain.
The Running Total
Combined budgets of this list: $1.552 billion. Not counting marketing (add another $1B+ for that).
For $1.5 billion, you could fund 454 movies at the Whiplash budget level. Four hundred and fifty-four Whiplashes. Instead, we got ten movies that most people either haven't seen, didn't like, or forgot about.
That's not a creative industry. That's an industry that's lost the plot.