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All great sci-fi is ahead of its time, which often makes movies in the genre fall flat before audiences are able to appreciate their visionary qualities. There are many reasons why the best sci-fi movies tend to flop at the box office. Some are victims of bad timing or botched marketing. Others are simply too inventive for audiences to fully appreciate at the time of their release. Blade Runner, for example, was panned by critics when it was released in 1982, and audiences simply didn’t show up. It barely broke even. Over time, however, thanks to repeat viewings on home video, it became widely regarded as one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time.
Sadly, not all great movies are given a second chance, no matter how much time has passed. Many of the best sci-fi movies remain underappreciated, whether due to the bad reputation they received at the time of their release or because they never got much attention to begin with. But which one is the most underrated? Vote up the movies that are better than their reputation. Vote down the ones that deserved to flop at the box office.
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As the creator behind blockbusters such as the Terminator franchise, Titanic, and Avatar, James Cameron knows how to make a hit. But even the most successful filmography has at least one flop. For Cameron, it’s the 1989 underwater thriller The Abyss. It follows a research team sent to rescue the crew of a sunken nuclear submarine in the deepest part of the ocean. As they struggle to maintain their sanity in the claustrophobic environment, a mysterious series of events outside their submarine hints at an extraterrestrial presence lurking in the deep.
With its perilous diving sequences, leaking submarines, and aquatic aliens, the movie scratched Cameron’s underwater itch and required significant technological innovation to meet his demand for realism. But it was, by all accounts, a hellish film to shoot. The cast, led by Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio were forced to spend much of the production in a seven-million-gallon tank of water. Ed Harris nearly drowned, and both he and Mastrantonio avoid talking about the film to this day. The fraught production ran woefully behind schedule and the budget ballooned from $33 million to $43 million. Despite the groundbreaking special effects and breathtaking underwater sequences, it flopped at the box office, garnering a scant $54 million domestically. Critics marveled at the technical achievements but condemned it as an “overwrought” and “spectacularly silly” film with an absurd ending. It also suffered from timing. Two other underwater monster movies, Leviathan and DeepStar Six, opened to disastrous critical and box office reception earlier that year, souring audiences to another take on the genre. The Abyss remains one of Cameron’s lesser-known works even though the underwater cinematography is still a revelation 30 years later. The performances also stand out, with Harris’s and Mastrantonio’s portrayal of a volatile marriage just as suspenseful and affecting as the perilous drama spiraling around them.
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In the late ‘90s, a neo-noir sci-fi film was released that featured humanoid aliens dressed in black, grungy city streets, and an everyday protagonist who discovers that reality may not be what it seems. No, it isn’t The Matrix, but Dark City bears such a close resemblance to the Wachowskis’ groundbreaking film that it’s no wonder only one of them is remembered today. Dark City was released a year before The Matrix (which even used some of its sets) but failed to strike the same chord with audiences. As a result, Alex Proyas’s film continues to live in relative obscurity.
Set in an unspecified time, Dark City follows John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) who wakes up in an unfamiliar hotel bathroom with no memory and a dead woman in the bedroom. He begins to question the nature of reality when he is pursued by tall, shadowy strangers who appear to be controlling the world around them without anyone but Murdoch noticing. When the film was released, critics immediately pointed out the strong parallels to other films. Dark City is a roll call of classic cinema, with shades of everything from 1927’s Metropolis, to the manga series Akira, to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. This proved to be incriminating for some reviewers, but famed critic Roger Ebert considered it “a triumph” and would later include it in his list of “Great Movies.” Poor test screenings led the studio to remove scenes and add an infamous voiceover in the opening seconds that spoiled the plot. Proyas has said that the film “fell through the cracks” when the studio struggled to market it. With a budget of $27 million, it made only $5 million opening weekend.
Christopher Nolan has cited Dark City as an influence for Inception, but the film remains underappreciated. While many reviewers scorned its overt parallels to classic films, the sheer volume of its references creates a distinct style that is entirely its own. This style also serves a narrative purpose that is revealed in the final act, demonstrating how production design can serve plot to dazzling effect. Beyond its visual inventiveness, however, the film’s themes of reality, memory, and the essence of the human soul still resonate decades later.
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When Event Horizon was released in 1997, it was slammed by critics. One reviewer hated it so much that he compared the experience of watching it to putting a bucket over your head and banging it with a wrench for 100 minutes. Considering the film is only 96 minutes long, that is harsh condemnation indeed. Set in the year 2047, the story follows a rescue crew sent to investigate the mysterious reappearance of a spaceship called Event Horizon that disappeared into a black hole seven years earlier. When they reach the ship, it appears to be empty. As they explore its gothic depths, however, they realize they are not alone.
The film was plagued with setbacks from the start of production. When James Cameron’s Titanic was delayed, Paramount gave director Paul WS Anderson a generous $60 million and creative freedom to get the film out as quickly as possible. His decision to make a sci-fi flick that resembled The Shining more than 2001: A Space Odyssey did not go over well with test audiences, who were so disturbed by the first cut of the film that Anderson had to remove a significant number of scenes. The resulting edit fell flat with audiences and critics, who voiced confusion over the genre-bending sci-fi/horror plot and the derivative storyline (it drew heavily on films such as 1972’s Solaris). Event Horizon would gross only $26 million at the box office, a crushing failure for Paramount.
In the 15 years since its release, however, Event Horizon has gained new life. With its stunning set design modeled on Notre Dame Cathedral and committed performances from the likes of Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill, it is now recognized as an innovative contribution to the genre. Even its tonal inconsistency is lauded, with the abrupt third act switch from cerebral sci-fi thriller to all-out gore-fest remaining one of the most disturbing and visceral representations of hell depicted on-screen.
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Few flops have the distinction of bringing down an entire studio. Titan A.E. is one of them. Fox’s animation division had been up and running for six years by the time the apocalyptic sci-fi space drama was released, but had only produced one other film, Anastasia, in 1997. Titan A.E. was intended to finally position the studio as a worthy opponent of Disney. Instead, it brought Fox Animation Studios to an abrupt end.
Set in the year 3028, the film begins with Earth getting blown into oblivion by an alien race called the Drej. Cale Tucker, one of the few surviving humans, bands together with a rag-tag crew of space creatures to find the Titan, a spaceship created by his late father which is the last hope for humanity’s survival. With a reported budget of $100 million and a box office return of $36 million, Titan A.E. was a bomb that imploded Fox Animation. The directors of the film, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, have yet to make another Hollywood movie.
Even Titan A.E.’s defenders concede that it is not a perfect film, but its colossal failure was not due entirely to the plot holes and overt parallels to Star Wars. One of the main issues was its target audience. While Anastasia had been aimed squarely at the Disney crowd, complete with an intrepid princess and musical interludes, Titan A.E. is dark, dystopian, and downright nihilistic. Voiced by Matt Damon, Cale is a jaded teen with daddy issues who repeatedly resists the call to action even with humanity is on the brink of extinction. It is not a kid’s movie, but the teens it was aimed at weren’t rushing to see an animated movie when they were accustomed to getting their space fix from live action. But its combination of CGI and 2D animation was enough to gain effusive praise from critic Roger Ebert, and the movie’s commitment to angst and unsanitized violence makes it stand out among other animated features of the era. Today, Titan A.E. has a passionate following.
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There was a period starting in the late '80s when Disney could do no wrong. From The Little Mermaid to The Lion King to Beauty and the Beast, the era became known as the Disney Renaissance because almost every animated film the studio released was showered with box office receipts and critical acclaim. One of the few exceptions was 2002’s Treasure Planet, a flop that signaled the end of Disney’s illustrious era.
Based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel Treasure Island, the movie follows wayward teen Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose desire for adventure is finally realized when he receives a map to the mythical Treasure Planet. The quest takes him on a journey through space alongside a group of friends including a feline ship captain (Emma Thompson), the ship’s cook (Brian Murray), and a canine astronomer (David Hyde Pierce). Accustomed to a string of Disney classics, critics were warm but not effusive, noting that it was a mediocre version of a tired formula. Pixar had already demonstrated the potential of 3D animation in Toy Story and Monsters, Inc., making the familiar 2D Disney style (Treasure Planet combined both 2D and 3D animation) look old-fashioned. The film also coincided with the release of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, trouncing Disney’s hope of having a decent opening weekend. Costing $140 million, it only made $109 million worldwide.
The mixture of classic 2D animation and CGI may have looked outdated to audiences in 2002, but 20 years later, the inventiveness of Treasure Planet is apparent. Turning a classic 19th century seafaring novel into a space traveling sci-fi adventure was daring, but the filmmakers succeeded by adopting the “70/30 rule,” basing 70 percent of the design on the 1800s and 30 percent on a sci-fi future. This creates a unique alternate universe of space surfboards, steampunk cyborgs, and ships sailing through a rainbow-colored ocean of stars. These qualities, alongside the distinctly early aughts soundtrack, makes Treasure Island a forgotten time capsule and a timeless classic all in one.
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Few movies have a reputation as humiliating as John Carter. Intended to herald the beginning of a new Hollywood franchise, it instead became a cautionary tale that reshaped the movie business. Based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs series John Carter of Mars, the film centers on a Civil War veteran who is transported to the red planet, called “Barsoom'' by its inhabitants.With hit-making Pixar director Andrew Stanton at the helm, a fantastical world of frightening and adorable creatures, and a hero as charismatic as Burrrough’s more famous creation, Tarzan, John Carter was expected to win big for Disney. In total, they sank about $350 million into the project, a price tag so high that experts projected the film would have to make a staggering $600 million just to break even. It failed by a long shot, resulting in a $200 million writedown for Disney. Less than a year later, the studio acquired Lucasfilm, which together with Marvel has allowed Disney to stick to profit-making certainties.
John Carter may be remembered as the floppiest flop of them all, but it was not as poorly received as its infamy suggests. Critics praised its unique world-building and impressive visual effects. One critic even argued that the controversial budget was justified, writing that “for once, the money is truly in service of wonder.” Ironically, the influence of the source material may have contributed to John Carter’s lukewarm reception. Both George Lucas and James Cameron have cited Burroughs’s stories as inspiration for Star Wars and Avatar, respectively. By the time John Carter finally made it to the big screen, everything that made it so innovative had already been done.
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Warner Bros. took a gamble when it greenlit the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner. Starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Denis Villeneuve hot off the successes of Prisoners, Sicario, and Arrival, Blade Runner 2049 had a lot going for it. But the hefty $155 million budget and 35-year interval since the original film made it anything but a sure thing. The story follows K (Gosling), an android (“replicant”) and “blade runner” whose job is to track down and kill other replicants who have rebelled against their enslavement. During one of his assignments, K discovers a secret that raises questions about the sentience of replicants and prompts him to search for Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former blade runner who disappeared 30 years before.
Critics and audiences raved, but the box office numbers were dismal. Blade Runner 2049 only managed to pull in a total of $240 million globally, far below the $400 million it was projected to gross. In the end, its producers lost $80 million. This failure was due in part to the massive budget ($155 million rivals even some Marvel movies), as well as its nearly three-hour running time and R rating. But these pitfalls are also why the film is such a creative success and worthy of its predecessor. If the studio had insisted on a more inclusive PG-13 rating and shorter running time, Blade Runner 2049 may have attracted more mainstream audiences, but it would likely have turned into a disjointed action flick with a convoluted plot that never quite adds up. The languid pacing and melancholy reflections on what it means to be human is what allows the film to be so visually and philosophically arresting.
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Some sci-fi movies mirror reality so closely that they can hardly be included in the genre. Kathryn Bigelow’s 1995 thriller Strange Days is all but forgotten, but it is an even closer reflection of the world now than when it was released. Set in 1999 just before the turn of the millennium, it stars Ralph Fiennes as Lenny Nero, a former LAPD officer who sells illegal recordings of memories on the black market. The so-called SQUID technology allows every activity from sex to robbery to be recorded directly from a person’s cerebral cortex onto a minidisc so others can experience it firsthand. When Lenny uncovers a conspiracy in one of the recordings involving the murder of prominent rapper Jeriko One, he and his friend Mace (Angela Bassett) set out to reveal the truth.
Filmed shortly after the Rodney King uprising and released a day after the O.J. Simpson trial concluded, Strange Days was a reflection of the moment as much as it was a predictor of things to come. It was an expensive flop, costing $42 million and making only $30 million at the box office, and it nearly ended Bigelow’s career. Critics were turned off by its brutality, singling out a prolonged first-person rape and murder sequence in particular. One critic complained that Bigelow’s direction made him feel “hammered and abused.” Audiences may also have been so fatigued by the social upheaval at the time that they had no appetite for sitting through a heightened version of what they were already experiencing, especially when the world the film depicted was portrayed as a post-apocalyptic hellscape. While its raw violence is uncomfortable to watch, Strange Days deserves more praise and visibility than it has received. Its themes of police brutality, body cams, and the moral implications of virtual reality are eerily relevant to the world decades after the film was released.
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Darren Aronofsky’s cinematic meditation on love and immortality almost didn’t get made. Originally budgeted at $70 million, it stalled when the lead actor, Brad Pitt, pulled out. Aronofsky had to wait four years and settle for a revised $30 million budget to finally bring it to fruition. The story focuses on two love stories spanning multiple centuries. In 1500, the Queen of Spain (Rachel Weisz) is facing a deadly rebellion and sends a loyal conquistador (Hugh Jackman) to Central America to find the Tree of Life in the hope that it will make her invincible. In 2000, a scientist (Jackman) races to find a cure for the cancer that is killing his wife (Weisz). Sometime in the distant future, a man (Jackman again) floats through the cosmos and stands before the Tree of Life, contemplating his lost love. Audiences were indifferent to the film when it came out, offering only $16 million at the worldwide box office. Reviews were mixed, though many voiced irritation and confusion about what all the century-hopping and psychedelic depictions of the universe actually meant. One critic referred to it as “a pretentious, unfocused, and fussy mess.”
Despite this criticism, however, The Fountain deserves deeper examination. In a post-Inception and Interstellar world, the moviegoing public has a greater appetite for non-linear structures and esoteric musings on the cosmic order of things. The tragic love story at the heart of The Fountain prevents the film’s abstractions from becoming too ponderous or cryptic, and the interwoven stories come together to provoke profound questions about life, loss, and acceptance.
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Annihilation was never going to be an easy sell. Alex Garland’s disquieting, slow-paced, horror-inflected “fever dream” was labeled “too intellectual” by test audiences, and gave Paramount sufficient anxiety to pawn off its international distribution rights to Netflix. Despite the success of Garland’s similarly cerebral film Ex Machina four years before, Paramount all but ensured Annihilation’s financial doom. The movie stars Natalie Portman as Lena, a biologist recruited by the US government to join an expedition investigating the origins of a mysterious zone called “The Shimmer.” No one has come out of The Shimmer alive except Lena’s husband (played by Oscar Isaac), and he emerged in an altered state that no one can explain. As they advance into the eery swampland, the group is confronted with animal and plant mutations that are beautiful, grotesque, and deadly.
Critics lauded the film’s originality and intensity, but the studio thought these factors would turn audiences away. With a $40 million budget, it only managed to take in $11 million on opening weekend. Despite Paramount’s lack of faith, Annihilation has all the hallmarks of a classic. It is genuinely horrific, visually inventive, and subtly deals with decidedly non-fictional themes like depression, grief, and self-sabotage. While it may never get the mainstream recognition it deserves, it is likely that future sci-fi blockbusters will bear a striking resemblance to Garland’s film and owe a significant debt to its influence.
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Alien: Covenant
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Few sci-fi franchises have had as enduring an influence as Alien. The original 1979 film changed the genre forever, and launched a series of imitations that continues to this day. Over the past several decades, multiple sequels and prequels have been made. The most recent iteration is Alien: Covenant. Taking place approximately 20 years before the events in the original Alien and 11 years after the first prequel, Prometheus (2012), the story begins with the spaceship Covenant bound for the planet Origae-6. Full of human colonists seeking a new home, the ship is diverted to a new, apparently habitable planet after a disaster claims the life of its captain. Central to the film is Michael Fassbender’s dual performances as Walter, the Covenant’s synthetic crew member; and David, the synth from Prometheus who is now the only inhabitant of the planet. David’s mysterious motivations are at the center of Alien: Covenant and determine the crew’s fate.
Reviews of the film were mixed, with some critics hailing it as a return to form for Scott and the Alien franchise, and others condemning it as derivative, dull, and even “unpleasant.” Prometheus had a similarly mixed reception five years before, but nevertheless managed to rake in $400 million at the worldwide box office. Alien: Covenant suffered a different fate, managing just $240 million. Theories about why Covenant failed to match up to its predecessor vary from franchise fatigue (2017 had already seen 12 studio franchise sequels by the time Covenant was released), and the gruesome content. Compared to Star Wars, Alien: Covenant has a much more niche appeal. But despite its occasionally flimsy script, the movie shows Ridley Scott at his best, combining the body-horror of the original Alien with the philosophizing about what it means to be human that he examined in Blade Runner. Those qualities are matched by awe-inspiring visuals of an untouched planet, a decaying spacecraft, and even more realistic aliens, making Covenant a stand-out addition to the series.
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It's not surprising that every major studio passed on funding Tom Tykwer’s and the Wachowskis' Cloud Atlas, given that it was adapted from the David Mitchell novel that was widely deemed “unfilmable." Instead of turning to more manageable source material, the directors found independent financing to the tune of $100 million, making Cloud Atlas one of the most expensive indies ever made. Like the novel, the film follows six interconnected narratives that span centuries and continents, from a slave ship off the coast of New Zealand in 1849 to post-apocalyptic Hawaii in 2321. With the help of lavish prosthetics and special effects, each member of the cast, including Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, and Hugh Grant, plays multiple characters, switching gender, race, and age. Tom Hanks, for example, portrays a goateed author, a con artist, and a futuristic goatherd. At the heart of the film is a philosophical dialogue about reincarnation and the far-reaching legacy of individual actions.
Reviews were mixed. Writing in the New York Times, A.O. Scott summed up the general consensus when he wrote that Cloud Atlas was “an unruly grab bag of styles, effects and emotions.” It pulled in a mere $9.4 million in its opening weekend and was almost instantly labeled a flop. Audiences struggled to sit through three hours of tonally erratic storylines despite the heroic efforts of the cast, special effects, and makeup department. The directors have also acknowledged the lack of enthusiasm from Warner Bros., which handled the film’s distribution and botched its marketing campaign and release schedule. But Cloud Atlas deserves a second look, largely due to the fact that its staggering scope and admittedly convoluted structure are more coherent and resonant upon a second viewing. The acting may at times be grandiose to the point of comedy, but its ambition, scale, and exploration of the immortality of the soul are worth the running time.
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Remakes are Hollywood’s favorite and most secure route to financial success, but their box office returns are not a certainty. One of the most disappointing examples of a remake flop is Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 cerebral space thriller Solaris. Starring George Clooney as psychologist Chris Kelvin, the film centers on a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. Kelvin is sent to the station to investigate the mysterious psychological afflictions besetting the crew. When he reaches the station, he is plagued by hallucinations of his late wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone).
The original Solaris was directed by Russian auteur Andrei Tarkovsky and is largely regarded as a sci-fi masterpiece. Soderbergh’s version flopped at the box office, taking in a mere $30 million internationally against an estimated $47 million budget. Despite a largely positive response from critics, audiences stayed away. This is likely the result of the original movie’s relative obscurity. Most successful remakes and reboots are based on properties beloved by broad swathes of the moviegoing public, from the live action version of The Lion King to Top Gun: Maverick. Tarkovsky may be revered by cinephiles, but he is far from a household name. Soderbergh’s Solaris also suffered from the juxtaposition between the usually thrilling arena of space and the aching love story at its center. Fox opted to market it primarily as a romance, leaving out the fact that most of it happens in space and Clooney’s romantic interest may be an extraterrestrial honey trap. It may not have been what audiences were expecting, but Soderbergh’s Solaris is a worthy update of the original. With a career-best performance from Clooney and a meticulously crafted examination of the ambiguous boundaries between illusion and reality, it is an underrated gem.
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When Brad Pitt and director James Gray teamed up to make an $80 million thinking man’s space movie, critics were onboard. Its debut at the Venice Film Festival was met with rapturous praise, but wider audiences were less enthusiastic. Set in the near future, the film follows Roy McBride (Pitt), an astronaut for the US military who is sent to Neptune to locate his long-lost father, who went AWOL decades before. Sources suggest that McBride Sr. may be the cause of cosmic pulses that are wreaking havoc on earth, and Roy, famed for having a heart rate that never exceeds 80 BPM, is the man to track him down.
Ad Astra is punctuated by thrilling sequences, including a dune buggy chase across the moon, a baboon attack, and a daring high-wire act in the opening scene. But it is more meditation than thrill-ride. Roy’s quest into the depths of space mirrors the journey within. As he ventures deeper into the cosmos, he encounters the farthest reaches of his own soul. Critics went wild for this somber metaphor, but audiences were having none of it. In its opening weekend, it placed second at the box office behind Downton Abbey. This financial failure can partly be explained by its incongruous mood (most futuristic space operas are heavy on action rather than soul-searching), but it is also the result of genre-specific demands. Sci-fi films, especially those set in space, cost a lot of money. To achieve the sumptuous visual effects that audiences expect, producers have to foot a hefty bill. No matter how cinematically breathtaking, Ad Astra is essentially a contemplative exploration of the human condition, a premise which struggled to have the wide appeal most high budget films rely on.
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Following the overwhelming box office success of the Wachowskis' Matrix series, Warner Bros. decided they were the directors to finally bring the 1960s Japanese animated series Speed Racer to the big screen. The movie centers on Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch), a race car driver who seeks to win the racing world’s biggest event, which claimed the life of his older brother, Rex. When Speed chooses to stay loyal to his family and their independent team Racer Motors, he finds himself at odds with the corporate giant Royalton Industries.
WB wrote the Wachowskis a $120 million check to make Speed Racer and spent an additional $80 million on marketing and merchandising. Audiences and critics rebelled. The film only garnered $94 million worldwide, a huge flop for the studio. While the movie had an uphill battle for attention given that Iron Man had been released the week before, the people who did see it were unenthusiastic. One critic called it “Pop fascism.” Another described it as “a nightmare in which you’re trapped in an arcade with screens on all sides and no eyelids.” But the explosion of sensory overload that audiences derided at the time is exactly why it is being re-examined a decade later. While the plot may be an overly sincere allegory about capitalism, it is hardly the point. The saturated color palette, dizzying pace, and disregard for the laws of physics showcase the Wachowskis' extreme aesthetics in a way that is different from, but no less innovative than, the Matrix series. It may have been too intense for audiences at the time, but shades of Speed Racer can be seen in more recent releases such as Guardians of the Galaxy and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
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