This is a tough article to write. When you can’t remember a damn thing about the movies that we have on this list, it’s definitely a challenge. A lot of rewatching trailers and review had to be done so we can jog our memory on what we thought about these movies when we first watched it.
These movies had a sizable budget, claimed to be a huge hit when they hit the silver screen. However, this never happened. These movies are easily forgettable. It could be due to bad casting, bad writing or even just bad cinematography.
We’ll be listing 10 movies that had a big budget and big dreams but sizzle out with the audience. Time to jog your memory with these movies and walk down memory lane. We’re sorry, no refunds if you’ve spent money watching these movies.
Tomorrowland
Tomorrowland is a science-fiction adventure film that follows a former boy genius and a teenage girl on a mission to uncover the secrets of a mysterious place somewhere in time and space known as “Tomorrowland.” With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, the two must work together to unlock the secrets of this place and save humanity from destruction.
Hey look, George Cloney was in this.
Wild Wild West
Wild Wild West is a western action-comedy film based on the 1960s TV series of the same name. The film stars Will Smith and Kevin Kline as two agents of the United States Secret Service who are tasked with stopping a diabolical genius who plans to use a giant steam-powered spider to take over the world. Here’s a fact: Will Smith turned down to do Matrix for this movie. And the world got the revival of Keanu Reeves in an awesome movie. Wild Wild West is an attempt to the diesel punk genre, while pairing it with a well-known genre of spaghetti western. While the CGI holds up for its time, the entire plot of the movie made barely any cohesive flow to actually retain any memories about it in the viewer’s mind.
Fun Fact: Will Smith rejected the role of Neo in the Matrix to star in this show.
Hancock
Hancock is a superhero comedy-drama film that stars Will Smith as a hard-drinking, reluctant superhero who has fallen out of favor with the public. When he saves the life of a public relations executive, she decides to revamp his image and help him regain the public’s trust. We will give points to Hancock for being an original script, instead of an adaptation.
It stars off with a superhero-like being that just goes around and destroys public property due to being drunk. The movie repeats the same joke a dozen times, where Hancock threatens people to call him an asshole a second time. Another problem with the movie is that despite being a superhero, there isn’t a super villain. While the premise started off interesting, it ignored the superhero world building trope by including a super villain. Instead, we get a love throe between two ancient beings.
The movie would’ve been a great superhero movie that flipped the script entirely, but it tried to do too many things at the same, resulting in a movie that nobody remembers or even used as a reference.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Directed by Jon M. Chu, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is a science-fiction action film and sequel to the 2009 film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. The film follows the G.I. Joes as they battle against their mortal enemy, Cobra, who has infiltrated the U.S. government and is planning to take over the world. The first movie was an okay experience. It has a campy feel to it, with a laughable villain.
The trailer for Retaliation presented a terrible dubstep mix of Seven Nation of Army as the background music paired with a pretty cool looking action sequence. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned is to never trust movie trailers. Nobody ever talks about G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
And frankly, it felt like the studio cobbled up something, so they don’t lose the license rights to a dead toy franchise.
Green Hornet
Green Hornet is a superhero action-comedy film that follows the adventures of Britt Reid, a wealthy newspaper publisher who moonlights as a masked crime-fighter known as the Green Hornet. With the help of his sidekick, Kato, the two set out to take down a ruthless crime lord who controls the city. First of all, the casting is terrible. No one fits the role they’re supposed to play
There’s no nice way to put this, but stoner/comedic role typecast Seth Rogen absolutely does not make a great superhero. And pairing him with Jay Chou, a chinese singer with barely any acting skills is probably not a good idea. The movie is dead even before it started shooting its first scene.
This movie was entirely carried by the villain, Christoph Waltz who somehow said yes to being part of this movie.
Cowboys And Aliens
Cowboys and Aliens is a science-fiction western film that follows a group of cowboys and Native Americans in 1873 Arizona who team up to fight against invading aliens. The film stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde. All these heavy hitters in one movie, and no one ever talks about this show.
The movie came out after Daniel Craig’s biggest role of his career, playing as James Bond. However, not even the upgraded levels of his fame did anything to help push the movie. A bunch of aliens landed in Wild West America era and a cowboy gets a piece of alien tech. Besides the obvious title that gives away the plot, nothing noteworthy is ever brought up in any conversations about movies.
Fun Fact: Jon Favreau directed this movie. Imagine that.
Mars Needs Moms
Mars Needs Moms is an animated science-fiction adventure film that follows a young boy named Milo who travels to Mars to rescue his mother who has been abducted by Martians. Along the way, he discovers the true meaning of family and the importance of a mother’s love.
This animated movie had a sizable budget, a generous 150 million dollars. And yet, it barely made a scratch and wouldn’t find this movie in any recommendations. The plot is boring, and the animation is honestly kind of disturbing.
While the idea is to get some good ol’ realistic looking animation, all we got instead is disturbing looking characters, especially the kids. If you want to scare your children with an animated movie, Mars Needs Moms will do the trick. If you really want to find out how not to do an animated movie, you can speed through this movie for a couple of good laughs.
Fun Fact: The people who did the 2019 live action version of Lion King have not watched this mom. Wait, Jon Favreau directed the new Lion King?
47 Ronin
47 Ronin is a fantasy action-adventure film that is based on the Japanese legend of the 47 Ronin. The film follows a group of samurai who seek revenge against a powerful warlord who killed their master and banished them from their homeland. Feudal Japan, rogue samurais, this movie had the makings of making a blockbuster.
Keanu Reeves was in the midst of his second Renaissance, when he agreed to make this movie. While the premise revolves around feudal era Japan, it didn’t gain much traction. The pacing of the movie is off. The script and lack of character development didn’t help with the movie.
While we appreciate cool homage towards interesting historical eras, 47 Ronin lacked substance and relied heavily on CGI and cool one-liners, that honestly weren’t cool to begin with.
San Andreas
San Andreas is a disaster film that follows a search and rescue helicopter pilot who sets out to save his estranged wife and daughter when a massive earthquake hits California. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, and Alexandra Daddario.
Casting Dwayne Johnson as the lead in any movie can be troublesome. His huge physique might put him in a typecast situation. However, acting as a rescue-chopper pilot is probably one of his roles that probably made people groan in disbelief. Honestly, show us a jacked up chopper pilot in real life, and I’ll erase this entry.
The CGI is stunning, an absolute upgrade to the whole disaster movie genre. But like every disaster movie out there, it relies too much on CGI and the catastrophic series of events instead of building the characters living it. While the attempt was to get the micro lens of a few characters in the middle of a disaster, the movie failed to do so and ended up being bland.
Check out this article for recommendations for great apocalypse movies.
Avatar
Set in the future, the film follows Jake Sully, a paraplegic ex-marine who is sent to the distant world of Pandora to infiltrate the Na’vi, a humanoid species with a unique connection to their natural environment. As Jake becomes immersed in the Na’vi culture and falls in love with a Na’vi woman named Neytiri, he finds himself torn between his loyalty to his own kind and his newfound respect for the Na’vi way of life.
While the second movie came out at the end of 2022, the movie holds a couple of records in the industry. Highest grossing film, speed record of grossing 500 million dollars and above and many more. However, if you asked anyone who went to watch the second movie about the plot of the first, we can guarantee you that nobody remembers a damn thing.
All we remember is blue aliens are the good guys and humans are bad. If that’s not bad, can anyone remember the rare mineral that the humans were after? It’s literally known as unobtanium. Looks like someone got really lazy in the script writing department.
Nobody remembers anything about the movie, and if James Cameroon thinks that all it takes to make a movie is jam in as much latest CGI tech in it, he’s absolutely wrong. Sure, it looks pretty, but without any substance in the movie, your movie will never be mentioned in anyone’s personal top favorite movies ever.
