2024 is the year of box office flops can Wicked and Gladiator II save it?

Two-thousand-twenty-four is turning into the Year of the Flop.Expensive comic book movies, starry comedies, Christmas fare, Westerns and auteur-driven sci-fi epics all spectacularly imploded.Major titles played to a couple of dudes who snuck in at 11 a.m.

Egos were obliterated.And the downward trend started right away.Almost as soon as we were done saying “Happy New Year!,” in early February came Apple’s sputtering spy spoof “Argylle,” starring Henry Cavill and Bryce Dallas Howard.That tedious misfire cost $200 million before marketing expenses, and grossed just $96 million.Poor Tim Cook.A few months later, the iPhone company’s $100 million “Fly Me to the Moon” with Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson tanked too.

Apple didn’t even bother putting the George Clooney-and-Brad Pitt-led “Wolfs” in theaters this summer.Another tectonic shift continued apace: The superhero genre, once invincible, was embarrassingly ripped down to earth by discerning audiences.The “Joker” sequel, “Folie à Deux,” was one of the most shocking releases of the year.Warner Bros.

and DC’s follow-up to the billion-dollar Best Picture nominee starring Joaquin Phoenix was made into a musical with Lady Gaga for some unfathomable reason, and cost $200 million.With marketing and distribution, it could lose that much money too.Remember “Madame Web”? I saw it so you don’t have to.We also saw just how much mileage A-List names have.

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt were flying high after “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” The next summer, came their fall.Or, rather, their “Fall Guy” — a comedy about a stuntman who goes on a real adventure that lost Universal a reported $60 million.Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — the biggest star whose movies hardly ever turn a profit — is currently in the $250 million Christmas dreck “Red One.” Right now “Red One” is all red ink.Nobody had it worse than Francis Ford Coppola and Kevin Costner, though.

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