The 12 Biggest Movie Disappointments Of 2024

Whether it's an independent film produced on a shoestring budget or a tentpole picture from a major studio, films are just as much an art form as they are a science. Nowadays, the biggest releases typically rely on heavy market research and years of intense data gathering in an effort to deliver the most satisfying and profitable movies to fans. At the same time, filmmakers themselves who are less flush with cash still opt to explore new territory while following tried and true filmmaking lessons as a way of breaking through to the masses. But it seems like for every new hit film, there are just as many that miss the mark in spectacular fashion, failing to live up to our lofty expectations.

Things were no different in 2024. Though there were several blockbuster sequels like "Inside Out 2" and "Deadpool and Wolverine" that smashed the doors off the box office, there are even more that failed deliver on the excitement they promised. Maybe the hype was overblown or a good trailer got audiences pumped, but when they landed in theaters they just couldn't muster the same level of excitement. For some, it was a sequel that took a major turn away from everything that made its predecessor so great. For others, it was a case of wasting a promising cast. Some simply bombed at the box office when they should have killed it. But no matter the reason, all of these movies were huge disappointments.

A legacy sequel to one of the biggest smash hits of the '90s, "Twisters" stars Glen Powell as Tyler Owens, YouTube star and stormchaser, who is joined by meteorologist Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in her attempt to prove the viability of a new weather-detecting technology. If that sounds an awful lot like the plot of the original 1996 "Twister," that's because it is. Even though Glen Powell said it wasn't a reboot or continuation of the first film, "Twisters" is the definition of a soft reboot — technically a sequel but essentially the same movie, with a new, younger cast in similar roles.

Though "Twisters" certainly isn't a bad movie by any stretch — there's a lot of fun to be had — it never comes close to the heights of the original. Powell, for all his charm, simply can't match original star Bill Paxton, and ultimately the film can't succeed the way Powell's other legacy sequel, "Top Gun: Maverick," did. Though Powell and the rest of the cast do a decent job, the story — for all its attempts at being bold and fresh — really just feels like the retread it is. 

The most disappointing aspect of "Twisters" isn't a lackluster script or a bad cast, but the fact that there's almost no connection to the first movie, making this more like a remake than anything else. Where other legacy sequels like "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" brought back their respective franchise's biggest stars, the likes of Helen Hunt, Cary Elwes, and Jamie Gertz are nowhere to be found in "Twisters."

After starting out as a director with the likes of "Layer Cake" and "Kick-Ass," Matthew Vaughn took to franchises with 2011's "X-Men: First Class" and 2014's "Kingsman: The Secret Service," an entirely new project that wound up turning into a full trilogy. But even before the disappointing box office returns of the third entry, "The King's Man," cast doubt upon the future of that series, Vaughn already had an entirely new spy comedy in the works that was completely unrelated to the "Kingsman" franchise (at least until the ending, which we explained here).

Released in early 2024, "Argylle" promised to be unlike what audiences had seen before, with a reality-bending meta plot that put an introverted author at the center of a spy-filled caper after the story in her novels begins to bleed into the real world. But what should have been a modern favorite on par with Vaughn's best work wound up being far more of a mixed bag. Poor critical reviews and "meh" word of mouth — which largely found fault with the movie's bloated two-and-a-half hour runtime — set "Argylle" up for box office failure. Ultimately, the film floundered in its attempts to turn a profit against a massive budget of $200 million, not even earning back half of what they spent to make it.

One of the highest-grossing films of 2019, and still one of the most successful films based on a DC Comics character, "Joker" absolutely killed it with audiences and critics, becoming the biggest R-rated movie of all time as well. The film netted star Joaquin Phoenix an Academy Award for his role as the Clown Prince of Crime, and nailed the gritty tone that was needed for the Joker's sinister origin story. With all the money and rave reviews, it goes without saying that director Todd Phillips' first comic book flick would be a tough act to follow. But when the sequel, "Joker: Folie à Deux," finally reached theaters in 2024, it was a far cry from the critically acclaimed blockbuster everyone was hoping for.

With a domestic take of just $58 million against a stated budget nearly four times as much, the film proved to be an unexpected catastrophe for Warner Brothers. Also saddled with combined critical and audience derision, it proved to be a major misstep for everyone involved. You can take your pick of what's to blame for the film being such a disappointment, with everything from the plethora of confusing musical numbers to a brutal ending that didn't sit right with some fans all being contenders for the film's failings. While it may have seemed to be a bold decision at the time to make a sequel so drastically different from the original, it proved to be too much, with "Folie à Deux" turning the formula that made "Joker" work on its head in all the wrong ways.

Plenty of film favorites have come from the Coen brothers directing duo, including titles like "Fargo" and "The Big Lebowski" — all-time classics not just within the pair's filmography, but in the wider world of cinema. In fact, Joel and Ethan Coen are often considered among the best directors in the history of Hollywood. A more recent development saw the longtime siblings split up, with longtime Coens composer Carter Burwell revealing that Ethan didn't want to make movies anymore. That was short-lived, however, with Ethan returning in 2024 for his first solo film, "Drive-Away Dolls." 

A road trip comedy that everyone was probably hoping would be reminiscent of the Coens' '80s favorite "Raising Arizona," "Drive-Away Dolls" follows a pair of young women in love who cross paths with a trio of criminals and become privy to a prominent politician's raunchy secret. Unfortunately, audiences felt that the film just wasn't that funny — which is practically a death sentence for any comedy — with our own review calling the lesbian romp "high on silliness, low on laughs." A paltry total of just $8 million in theaters only hurt the film's reputation that much more, leaving us to wonder if the Coens are stronger when directing together, a move already apparently in the works.

Religious comedies have never been the biggest blockbusters but several have become classics, including "Monty Python's Life of Brian" and "Dogma." There's loads of comic potential there, so when "The Book of Clarence" was announced there was some excitement around the project, and not just because of its unique story. 

Helming the film was rising star director Jeymes Samuel, hot off his acclaimed Netflix Neo-Western "The Harder They Fall," which starred Idris Elba, Jonathan Majors, and Zazie Beetz. An equally impressive cast gave us more reasons to look forward to "The Book of Clarence," with David Oyelewo, James McAvoy, Alfre Woodard, and Benedict Cumberbatch joining "Atlanta" star LaKeith Stanfield in the title role as a charlatan prophet inspired by the miracles of Jesus Christ.

Though the movie seemed to have everything going for it, it just didn't translate into box office bucks. That's probably because the film was a generally uneven laugher that lacked the bite of other religious comedies and didn't make good use of its star-studded talent. Though not bad, it didn't quite meet the bar that "The Harder They Fall" had set so high. And despite a meager budget of just $40 million, it only made a fractional $6 million back in ticket sales.

Released in the spring of 2000, director Ridley Scott's action epic "Gladiator" won five Academy Awardsand remains an enduring classic — with some historical inaccuracies that actually make the movie better. The film pits Roman general turned slave Maximus Meridius (Russell Crowe) against the evil Emperor Commodus (Jaoquin Phoenix) in a tale of revenge and honor. "Gladiator II" spins a similar story of vengeance, this time showcasing Maximus's son Lucius (Paul Mescal) and his struggle against a new wave of Roman tyranny.

Scott's long-awaited sequel to "Gladiator" more or less lives up to expectations in terms of being a worthy follow-up, but it's not close to the original. Yet it's the studio executives who were probably the most disappointed: The most expensive film of the year — with a reported budget of anywhere from $250-300 million – the Ridley Scott feature needed to do serious numbers to make a buck. And though it's put up nearly $375 million at the global box office at the time of writing — enough to make a more budget-conscious title a smash success — it's just not enough to keep "Gladiator II" from being a major financial disappointment.

Perhaps one of the year's biggest letdowns came from the mind of one of cinema's most celebrated filmmakers. The first film in over a decade from legendary "The Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppola, "Megalopolis" set out to be one of his most ambitious films to date. A visual treat set in a bizarre alternate United States, the epic tale had reportedly been in the works for over 40 years. Coppola's directing prowess was bolstered by a star-studded cast featuring the likes of Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, and Giancarlo Esposito, to name just a few, and gave audiences lots to be excited about. But for all it had going for it, "Megalopolis" wound up underperforming by just about every metric.

There are countless reasons why Megalopolis bombed at the box office, from a nightmarish production that saw studios repeatedly reject the project to plenty of drama unfolding behind the scenes. The trainwreck didn't stop when the film finally opened, failing to put butts in seats and barely raking in a 10th of its budget after the final worldwide take. Those few who did see the movie early in its run left the theater with few positive things to say about the overly ambitious project. While the general consensus was that "Megalopolis" was a bloated and largely directionless watch, it was still stunning to see such a massive disappointment from one of the industry's most respected luminaries. 

There's something of a rule of thumb when it comes to adapting video games into movies which can be summed up in one word: don't. By and large, they rarely manage to both turn a profit and also be considered a worthy translation of their source material, with only a select few being remembered as truly great. So it's understandable that fans of the video game "Borderlands" may have gone into this one with caution. But with a cast whose acting and comedic chops are some of the best in the business, there was hope that "Borderlands" might not be terrible. Boy, were we wrong.

Almost universally panned by critics, just about everything that could have gone wrong for "Borderlands" did, with perhaps the worst element being surprisingly enough, the casting. The on-screen talent just didn't work well together, and for a series known for its humor, most of the jokes fell flat. Additionally, it played fast and loose when it came to drawing from the source material, with the final result being an unfunny, hard-to-watch adventure that looked but didn't feel anything like "Borderlands." And, of course, it flopped hard at the ticket counter, making it one of 2024's most disappointing entries, with Eli Roth admitting to IndieWire that he could "write a book" on the difficult shoot.

Some 25 years after he first made a name for himself with "The Sixth Sense," M. Night Shyamalan has become one of Hollywood's more polarizing directors — thankfully not for any off-screen drama, but instead for the hit-or-miss quality of his films. Some, like "Unbreakable" and "Signs," are remembered fondly, but for many years it seemed like it was flop after flop. Still, coming off a pair of decently-received horror movies in "Old" and "Knock at the Cabin," it seemed like maybe things had turned around for him. 

In "Trap," we follow Cooper (Josh Hartnett), a family man hiding a dark, murderous secret from everyone in his life. But after taking his daughter to a pop star's concert, and later kidnapping the celeb herself, he becomes locked in a game of cat and mouse with her that will decide his fate. Featuring Shyamalan's own daughter as the pop sensation, it looked to be something unlike anything we'd seen from the director before. But what would otherwise be a solid psychological thriller gets bogged down by ludicrous plot turns and frequent, increasingly bizarre musical numbers that distract from the story and left some feeling that they were an obvious promotion for Saleka Shyamalan's music career.

Released in late 2019 before gaining worldwide acclaim on Netflix in 2020, "The Platform" is one of the more unique horror flicks in recent memory. It follows a pair of prisoners in a sprawling dystopian prison, consisting of seemingly hundreds of cells stacked on top of each other. Every day, a platform piled high with food descends through every cell, leaving the inmates locked in a desperate struggle for scraps as it moves lower into the prison. A tightly written and wildly popular sci-fi offering brimming with social commentary, the Spanish film left audiences with plenty of questions by the end that left room for a sequel. Who, or what, was controlling the prison? What would be the ultimate fate of the child sent to the top of the facility? Was there a way to escape?

Unfortunately, "The Platform 2" wound up expanding on little from the first film and answering none of its questions. It was instead a prequel to the gritty original which follows a woman named Perempuán (Milena Smit) and her cellmate Zamiatin (Hovik Keuchkerian) as they navigate the perils of the platform. Unfortunately, what that ends up entailing is less the introduction of new ideas, and instead just one grisly scene after another. While the shocking violence was nothing new, there was always a sense of direction in "The Platform" that its follow-up sorely lacked.

Blending the genres of action and comedy, F. Gary Gray's "Lift" saw Kevin Hart star alongside Sam Worthington, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Vincent D'onofrio in a high-stakes, high-altitude comedy caper. The film puts Hart into the role of professional criminal Cyrus Whitaker, who along with his highly-trained crew is forced to lead a daring heist after being caught red-handed in an art theft. No stranger to action flicks, with a "Fast and Furious" entry and 2019's "Men in Black International" under his belt, director F. Gary Gray rounded out his cast with Jacob Batalon and Jean Reno also in the mix.

Regrettably, like many of the titles we've looked at, a strong cast simply wasn't enough to save "Lift" from crashing and burning. Ridiculed for being about as generic as a heist film can be, "Lift" had Indiewire saying it "plays like a color-by-numbers parody of the genre as a whole," while Vulture lamented the capable cast as being underutilized: "One wishes the film had spent less time on its dumb heists and more time bouncing these people off one another." Audience opinions on "Lift" were just as unforgiving, cementing the sky-high comedy as a first-class disappointment.

"Rosemary's Baby" is one of the best horror movies of all time, an undeniable classic whether you're a horror geek or not. The story of young wife Rosemary Woodhouse's (Mia Farrow) struggle not just against Satanic forces but those in her life abusing her trust, make it the kind of title whose messages still resonate with audiences decades after its release. Given its lofty reputation, there was a lot of pressure for director Natalie Erika James to deliver something great when tasked with making a prequel — even if audiences didn't know it was a prequel at first. Though it's better made than some of the disastrously disappointing titles we've examined, it still fell far short of the hype.

As a prequel, "Apartment 7A" similarly follows the story of a New York City transplant (Julia Garner) who becomes entangled in a Satanic cult's plot to impregnate her with the son of Satan. Full of solid performances and some truly striking and eerie visuals, it was almost everything we hoped for. But the admittedly understandable decision to rehash many of the same beats we've seen before, combined with a generally underwhelming story, left "Apartment 7A" falling frustratingly short of its potential, with many feeling it was an insult to "Rosemary's Baby."