We’re rapidly nearing the end of summer and in these times some, such as myself, look back at the summer movie season and wonder: Which films succeeded and which proved costly flops?

While I don’t have anywhere near a complete list, two significant box office flops -at least in terms of revenue made versus invested- are clear.

The first is the Duncan Jones directed Warcraft.  Over on ign.com Steve Watts writes about this film’s losses:

Warcraft: This is How Much the Film Will Lose Even With Massive Success in China

I’m going to offer a really big SPOILER here (though you should read the article) and note the film is expected to lose approximately 15 million dollars when all is said and done.  Now, Hollywood accounting being what it is, I suspect the film will eventually go into the green thanks to DVD/BluRay sales as this film hasn’t yet appeared on the store shelves.

While I haven’t seen Warcraft nor, I have to be honest, am interested in doing so, my understanding is that the film felt disjointed and cut up in its theatrical incarnation.  I understand some 40 plus minutes of the film were trimmed to get it into a more reasonable runtime and, like what perhaps happened with Batman v Superman, the end result might have impacted the film’s cohesion.

The second big box office failure, and its a far bigger one, is Ghostbusters.  According to Pamela McClintock at The Hollywood Reporter…

Ghostbusters heading for a 70 million dollars plus loss, sequel unlikely

I reviewed the film shortly after it was released (you can read the review here) and found it was an amusing time killer which absolutely did not deserve all the negative comments directed at it in the run-up to the film’s release.  Unfortunately for the movie, China refused to allow its release in that country as they apparently do not want any movies which feature the “supernatural” so one large potential source of revenue was cut from the film right off the bat.  I suspect the negative comments also hurt the film in the end as there were likely a sizable amount of people who simply did not give it a chance.

In the end, there’s little, however, to argue about.  While I most certainly enjoyed Ghostbusters, clearly the film wasn’t good enough to bring in the hoped for droves of moviegoers.  Certainly it wasn’t good enough to overcome the many pre-release negative perceptions.

When all is said and done, I wonder how both Star Trek Beyond and Jason Bourne, films that both received decent reviews, will ultimately perform.  Both films had strong openings but appear to be stalling.  For that matter, will Suicide Squad also recoup its investments?

I suppose we’ll see soon enough.