Like many before it, this summer has had its fair share of flops. Disney’s had a few dark marks after Alice Through the Looking Glass and Steven Spielberg’s The BFG did poorly at the box office. Universal and Legendary also had bad luck when their co-financed video game movie, Warcraft, performed very weakly with domestic audiences. And as we near the end of the summer, it seemed like the time for flops was over and done. But alas, the Paramount-MGM remake, Ben-Hur, has unfortunately kept the trend going.
Released not even a month ago, the retelling of the famous Hollywood classic barely made an impact at all during its opening weekend. Other August releases like Suicide Squad, Sausage Party, War Dogs, and Don’t Breathe, made Ben-Hur a flop just waiting to happen. Not only that, the film generally received bad reviews, which only made the hill towards success even steeper. And with a budget of a whopping $100 million, THR reports that there could be a loss of $120 million by the end of its theatrical run. Unfortunately, that would easily make it the biggest flop of the summer by far. The report revealed that around 80% of the production budget was being footed by MGM, so Paramount will only lose a modest $13 million.
Remmakes surely have had their time in the spotlight, but Ben-Hur‘s lack of star power, CGI overload, and uninspired storytelling practically made it doomed from the start. But despite the major loss, MGM’s romance drama, Me Before You, made $200 million on a $20 million budget back in June. So, we can at least hope that the studio is still in good tidings with a success like that under its belt.
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