With movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home leading the charge, 2021 was a rebound year at the box office and the first post-pandemic successes were seen at theaters everywhere. Despite this, some films received a wide release but failed to move the needle with ticket sales.
From A24 indie films like Zola to heartwarming outings like A Journal for Jordan, the year had its fair share of box office flops that didn't see a return. Though they may have recouped their budget in the home video market, Box Office Mojo reported abysmal ticket sales for some 2021 movies.
Despite featuring a mega-star like Michael B. Jordan, the family melodrama A Journal for Jordan struggled to keep up with its sales. Before he died in combat in the Middle East, a man records a journal for his son that instructs him on how to grow up to be a good man without a father in his life.
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Sappy to the extreme, many moviegoers chose to forgo the film entirely. Middling reviews didn't help the film's word-of-mouth and even though it received a wide release in over 2,000 theaters, it seems as if A Journal for Jordan passed many audience members by without them noticing.
Though it was generally regarded as one of the best A24 movies in recent years, Zola couldn't pack the theater quite like other indie gems. Based on an infamous internet story, the film follows an exotic dancer who goes on a wild road trip to Florida where she quickly gets a lot more than she bargained for.
Hilarious and clever, the film used its internet origins as a way to tell the story in a much more off-hand and modern way. The characters were all over-the-top and sensationalized, and it is clear that the story is being filtered through the unreliable mind of the narrator. Even though it was a quality film, it couldn't keep up with summer blockbusters of the time and failed to see a return on a meager budget.
Separation is a rare box office flop that didn't actually flop all that hard, and horror movies tend to clean up pretty well on smaller budgets. A creepy young girl escapes from her loneliness through the comfort of her father and the ghost of her dead mother.
Though the film was released widely to theaters, the home video market was its aim and its meager ticket sales were not a death sentence for the subtle indie film. The movie received lackluster reviews but was creepy enough to keep the average horror hound engaged, and it was visually striking in a way that set it apart from the usual straight-to-streaming horror fare.
Packed with young star power and rife with outer space paranoia, Voyagers took the usually big-budget sci-fi genre and gave it a touch of indie charm. Set during a multigenerational space voyage, the story concerns the denizens of the ship who slowly begin to descend into madness as they lose grip on reality.
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Essentially Lord of the Flies in space, the film fell between the cracks and lost touch with what tone it was going for. The mixture of genres was a noble experiment, but the story was somewhat lacking and failed to live up to its great concept. In the end, the film did little to help itself stand out in theaters and many viewers simply went to see something else instead.
Sports films are feast or famine at the box office, and for the coming-of-age film Boogie, it was famine indeed. A young man dreams of becoming an NBA superstar but must contend with the pressures of being a teen athlete and balancing his life as a basketball player with the new relationships he is forming off the court.
Though far from being one of the best sports movies of all time, Boogie was nevertheless an accessible enough story that follows the usual beats of the underdog narrative. Small budget movies aren't always doomed at the box office, but Boogie could have benefited from a bump in its production value.
Finding You had all the trappings of a sure-fire rom-com hit, but the film still struggled to find anyone to come to see it. A successful violin player travels to the coast of Ireland to study abroad where she soon encounters a famous actor who she is reluctant to start a relationship with.
Complete with all the most-used romance movie tropes, Finding You was a well written outing that also featured the beautiful scenery of coastal Ireland as its backdrop. There was nothing objectively wrong with the film, and yet it wasn't the sort of movie that its audience was willing to go to the theater to see.
Movies like Land aren't made to be box office smashes, and they are usually put forward as vanity projects to show off a writer's skills or an actor's abilities. After facing an unspeakable tragedy in her life, a woman moves to a remote part of Wyoming to get her life back together.
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As a vanity project, the film soars while allowing Robin Wright to flex every acting muscle she possesses. The film offered very little else, and despite its stunning vistas, was somewhat empty of much plot or story. Because of this emptiness, few made the trek to the theater to see the movie, and most likely waited to catch it on streaming.
While it doesn't rank highly among Billy Crystal's best movies, Here Today still showed off what makes the veteran funny man great. An aging comedy writer strikes up an unlikely friendship when he befriends an outgoing street singer, and together they find funny ways to overcome the generation gap.
Filled with the usual Boomer humor that its premise lends itself to, Here Today is completely supported by the charisma of Crystal and his co-star Tiffany Haddish. The two have an excellent rapport and the writing is good enough to garner decent reviews. Unfortunately for the film, the combined star power of its two leads wasn't enough to put butts in seats.
Though it debuted at a film festival in 2018, Profile didn't receive a wide release until 2021 when it was distributed by Focus Features. The film follows a British agent who goes undercover online to infiltrate a purported terrorist cell. However, she slowly begins to get sucked into the cause by her recruiter.
Taking place almost exclusively online, the visuals of the film consist of web pages and video chats between characters. Even with its limitations, the story is taut and suspenseful in a way that keeps the audience invested throughout. Some have criticized the film for its oversimplification of complicated issues, and that could be partly to blame as to why it drummed up almost no interest in theaters.
The issues that college athletes face is certainly a fascinating topic to explore, but it seemed as if no one was interested in seeing National Champions, a film about that very subject. Just days before the biggest bowl game of the year, a star college quarterback leads his teammates on a strike for fair compensation.
With a respectable cast including J.K. Simmons, the film wasn't lacking in talent or star power. Though it was released widely to theaters across the U.S., it garnered almost no interest from fans. It received middling reviews, but considering how college football obsessed large parts of the U.S. can be, it was shocking that the movie didn't rake in a small profit at least.
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