Box Office Bomb cleanup

Late but I reverted Box Office Bomb as requested

The now current definition for Box Office Bomb only requires that "a bomb is an outright failure costing studios millions", and no mention is made regarding how that should be calculated. I think that means that any entries that explain why/how a film lost money should be permitted to stay, at least for as long as it takes for some kind of consensus-based criteria to be added to the definition.

I think that means the Black Adam entry should go back up, too. Multiple reputable publications have stated that the film lost the required "tens of millions" with plenty of evidence, and now that WB has abandoned Black Adam/Shazam entirely, the only one who's really still claiming it was profitable is The Rock himself. The prior description (which, for the record, I didn't write) acknowledges the dispute and cites multiple publications, and considering how the movie's apparent failure had a major impact on the long-term direction of DC films, I think it warrants a mention on the page.

Edited by Claystripe on May 5th 2023 at 11:12:07 AM

~Claystripe: A reply to this comment from the previous page. For the record, all the examples you bring up (Cleopatra, The Golden Compass, John Carter, The Lone Ranger, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, and Tomorrowland) are already on the page after having gone through the cleanups. And I certainly think they all count as flops, even if some of them "technically" made their production budget back.

I think "twice its budget - Worldwide" is a good threshold. But that's just me.

If we define it too vaguely, that lets practically anything get listed here (a few The Fast and the Furious films were listed for a while). If we define it too narrowly, then we can't list some beyond obvious money losers (like many of the aforementioned studio killers).

Edited by hello86 on May 6th 2023 at 9:55:02 AM

The only times I've seen movies that made their production budget back put under Bomb were unpopular ones they wanted to say failed, the misuse this thread is supposed to address.

My thoughts:

• Failing to make its production budget back at (local) box office is the only way objective enough to work as Trivia. Otherwise that's debating sources or Hollywood Accounting which seems contentious beyond this wiki's scope.
• If it failed despite making it's production budget back at box office, than it failed for reasons outside the movies creative control (marketing budget, corporate politics) so is unfair/complaining to hold against the work.

We have Franchise Killer, Stillborn Franchise, and such for non-Bombs that still failed in a way objective enough to call Trivia.

In short, I say Box Office Bomb should only apply if it fails to make its production budget back at local box office. Anything else is too open to debate/subjectivity/use as shoehorning in complaining, and fit's other Trivia if it failed despite.

I've been thinking of the Trivia item "Series Killer" (as many Franchise Killer examples I've seen look misused as only killing a small part of the franchise) that might be a better fit for such Bomb misuse.

Using Worldwide boxoffice compared to a multiple of the production budget it is equally objective as local box compared to production budget.

And that definition ignores the fact that one dollar of box office is not equal to one dollar of budget.

True. The question is which objective definition is the most useful/relevant in describing its fiscal impact. And I assume "one dollar of box office is not equal to one dollar of budget" refers to how only part of that goes back to the studio, correct?

I believe the current concept of Box Office Bomb predates international box office being seen as a significant part, nor does it take in to account profit margins of ticket sales or marketing cost, as that is the most straightforward and simple way to sum up it's impact. But that those are still arbitrarily chosen, used to shoehorn in examples, and ignoring modern/realistic financial complexities makes it seem like BOB isn't that meaningful, much less objective/uncontroversial enough to be Trivia.

If we have Franchise Killer / Stillborn Franchise, Creator Killer, Acclaimed Flop, and such to cover objectively significant/impactful measures of commercial failure, what is the point of BOB if it's so arbitrarily defined?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on May 6th 2023 at 4:42:38 AM

To an extent, most trivia tropes are "arbitrary". Acclaimed Flop would be just as unworkable, because you would have to define both critical response and whether the film lost money. The value of the page shouldn't be to provide a completely accurate accountant breakdown of profit margins, but to let readers know when a work has a reputation of being a massive money sink.

As I've brought up before, the issue with a hard rule against allowing anything that had its gross match/exceed its production budget is that one of the few things we actually know without a doubt about the finances is that theaters are taking 40-60% of that money. Because of that, we also know that a $200m film that makes $210m can lose much more than a $50m flick even could lose if it didn't make a single cent. We may not know how much The Lone Ranger or Fantastic Four actually lost, but it's not really debatable if they meet the criteria of "lost the studio tens of millions", and it's not being "unfair" to acknowledge that bigger budgets have bigger expectations.

Honestly, the best criteria to clean up the page might be a citation requirement. If you want to list a movie, find an article from a publication that describes it as a bomb and provides an estimate of how much was lost. That would raise the bar for some films and lower it for others, but it would at least ensure that people aren't only shoehorning in movies they don't like.

Edited by Claystripe on May 6th 2023 at 7:11:22 AM

Maybe we should require entries to have links from professional sources (Deadline, Variety, Hollywood Reporter) - similar to how Unfortunate Implications and Author's Saving Throw needs sources

From U-Z:

• Wonder Park (2019) - Budget, $80-100 million. Box office, $119.6 million. An extremely Troubled Production that saw both the director and a major member of the voice cast removed due to inappropriate behavior doomed this children's movie well before release. Paramount and Nickelodeon were forced to either under-market the movie or risk even worse press coverage, and they chose the former. The film was intended to serve as the pilot to an already-produced TV series like previous Nick-sponsored movies like Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Barnyard, but it performed so poorly and had such a negative stink attached to it that nothing from the series has ever been released.

The film did end up making back its budget, so should this entry be removed?

Well that's what we've been discussing most of this page.

No it didn't make back it's budget because not all box office goes back to offset budget so it lost money.

If we can't have any benchmark right now, then how much of the cleanup that was done does that invalidate? That was done with an arbitrary "must make less than 75% of budget" rule.

Edited by badtothebaritone on May 11th 2023 at 1:06:47 PM

Box Office Bomb / Marvel Comics Films has this entry:

Not sure any definition we have accounts for this if it's domestic take was larger than it's budget and it's worldwide take was more than double it's budget. It disappointingly underperformed but I don't think it's far to say it's bombed unless it's documented it lost money.

I found this article by Variety talking about how it lost money, claiming it needed $600 million to break even (since it had an additional $100 million for marketing costs):

Edited by chasemaddigan on Aug 4th 2023 at 9:31:49 AM

For years, I've been wondering if Box Office Bomb has a missing supertrope about commercial failures in any medium.

BoxOfficeBomb.Marvel Comics Films had Morbius (Budget, $75 to 83 million. Box office, $73,865,530 (domestic), $167,460,961 (worldwide)) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Budget $200m. Box office, $214,504,909 (domestic), $476,071,180 (international)) cut citing "Morbius and Ant-Man both made twice their production budget; may have lost some money, but not a bomb by the page definition."

They're still listed under their Trivia pages, what to do about that?

And for a wick check to TRS, what should we include? How much should we say it failed to make back to be valid?

I also question if BOB is trope worthy, given the unclear criteria and Franchise Killer and such cover objective failures.

I made Box Office Bomb Wick Check. Anyone who want to contribute is more than welcome.

I think those examples can just be cut for being misuse. As for your questions, I suppose a rename could be proposed if this goes to TRS but I'm not sure what else, sorry.