10 2024 Movie Flops That Could End Up As Cult Hits

2024’s been a year of confusing box-office disappointments with many long-awaited movies bombing. Some of the flops are unanimously considered to be creative missteps by the directors and crew members involved. Still, some of the low-grossing movies of 2024 are already finding love among viewers despite commercial failure and could go on to become sleeper hits or cult classics in the future. Argylle is among the biggest box office flops of 2024 which will probably not be redeemed in the future, but the same can’t be said of them all.

As history has proven repeatedly, sometimes movies that flopped at the box office eventually become cult classics. It is difficult to predict which movies will, later on, find the love that they didn’t upon release, but if one studies the trends in discussions about movies released in 2024, some films seem destined to become cult favorites in the future. The box office isn’t a yardstick for artistic quality, and some of these titles will definitely get their deserved recognition with time.

10

The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Directed By Guy Ritchie


The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a World War II film following a top-secret combat unit who were formed by Winston Churchill to hunt down Nazis. The film is directed by Guy Ritchie and based on the book The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: How Churchill’s Secret Warriors Set Europe Ablaze and Gave Birth to Modern Black Ops by Damien Lewis.

Release Date

April 19, 2024

Runtime

120 Minutes

Writers

Paul Tamasy
, Eric Johnson
, Arash Amel
, Guy Ritchie

It is hard to understand the box office performances of Guy Ritchie’s movies. He rarely has a smashing blockbuster hit, and in recent years, most of his underperforming movies have been interesting and engaging films that deserved to do better. It’s almost become a trend for Ritchie now that his smartly designed action comedies will feature talented actors but will be poorly marketed and then bomb at the box office, only to later find love and recognition in the form of cult fandom.

Henry Cavill in Argylle with tomatoes in the background

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Henry Cavill has led two box-office flops this year, the Matthew Vaughn movie Argylle, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which somehow performed worse than the former. Cavill and Alan Ritchson share a fun and energetic camaraderie in Ministry, and its bonkers action, premised around the execution of grand schemes, simply makes the movie much more enjoyable than the box office earnings might suggest.

9

Joker: Folie À Deux

Directed By Todd Phillips

It may be an unpopular opinion about a famous movie, but Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019) became a near-exact copy of Taxi Driver (1976) while trying to pay homage to it. Despite this, it earned itself a reputation for being highbrow because it tackles social ostracism and juxtaposes the struggling main character with the iconic status of the DC villain. As a standalone movie, it has a message that it delivers, albeit messily, but for fans, that’s not enough. Yet the sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, was one of the most anticipated movies of 2024.

There are sixteen songs in Joker: Folie à Deux, most of which are reinterpretations of popular songs.

Unfortunately, it was one of the biggest flops of the year. From mistimed musical numbers to a bland plotline, the criticisms about the movie haven’t stopped pouring in. However, this is quite common for experimental movies, especially when the musical element is attached to a movie belonging to a completely different genre. Phillips’ rejection of the lore he set up in the 2019 film as a response to the inceldom that the movie inspired could become grounds for people to reclaim Joker: Folie à Deux as a cult hit someday in the future.

8

The Apprentice

Directed By Ali Abbasi

The disparity between artistic merit and box-office performance is perhaps best demonstrated by the case of the Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice. With performances from Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong as Donald Trump and Roy Cohn, respectively, which earned them Golden Globes nominations, the Ali Abbasi movie bombed for reasons extraneous to the actual content of the film. In the United States, the movie struggled to even find any form of distribution until months after its Cannes Film Festival premiere, when Briarcliff Entertainment bought the rights and released it in October.

The Apprentice follows Donald J. Trump during his early days in New York before his political career truly took off and while he was still attempting to establish himself as a business magnate. Stan disappears into the role, performing an uncanny impression of Trump, accurate down to the most minor tic. The impact of his first presidency and whatever he’ll do in the next four years as the POTUS will keep him relevant for years, but one day, this movie will be a point of reference, and it’ll become a cult classic then.

7

Here

Directed By Robert Zemeckis

Nearly three decades after their Oscar-winning work on Forrest Gump (1994), the duo of Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks reunited for Here, but it performed worse at the box office in comparison to Forrest Gump. It’s a unique concept that looks fondly back at the past few decades of American culture, telling a story spanning generations that ultimately studies how society has evolved with time.

Zemeckis’ sensibilities, usually linked to his technical aptitude as a director, especially with cinematographic choices and his reliance on the latest technological advancements, have evolved over the years. However, he’s still telling similar kinds of emotionally endearing tales that made him popular. The warm and cozy family story in Here deserves more recognition. It’s a sweet and nostalgic look at how generations fill up the same space and leave their own marks on a place. The sentimentality on display is endearing, and maybe someday, it’ll be seen as a cult classic and get its due.

6

Saturday Night

Directed By Jason Reitman

Another case of a critically acclaimed movie underperforming at the box office in 2024, Saturday Night tells the story of the first episode ever of Saturday Night Live. The poor box-office collection can be attributed to a clash with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and The Wild Robot or simply minimal marketing, but the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd scores demonstrate that critics and viewers alike think highly of it.

Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd in the 2024 comedy-drama Saturday Night.

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Using a blend of comedy and suspense to create dramatic tension, the movie follows famous and iconic comedians on the day SNL aired for the first time, telling a fictionalized version of the events leading up to the first episode. While Saturday Night significantly changes the true story, it’s still a charming and nostalgic look at one of, if not the most successful television programs of all time. The talented cast delivers powerhouse unforgettable performances, and as a fictionalized biopic of one of the most influential nights in TV history, Saturday Night will undoubtedly garner cult fandom.

5

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1

Directed By Kevin Costner

The ego of an old-school Hollywood star like Kevin Costner is the only reason why such a passion project could even take off. In the age of streaming shows, a project of four three-hour Western movies that could have been a competitor to a show like Yellowstone; a theatrical release doesn’t seem like a smart marketing move, and predictably, the film didn’t do well at the box office. It’s a traditional Western with everything an aficionado might want, but it’s better suited to a different format.

However, Horizon: An American Saga deserves more recognition as a work of art than the theatrical release numbers suggest it received. Costner has undertaken a daring task and his patient direction crafted a masterpiece in storytelling, which rewards viewers for investing in the slow-burn. Not concerned with revisionism, Horizon goes back to the classic traditions of the Western genre from the 1950s and 1960s. While the charm is perhaps not ideal for the modern audience, Horizon‘s VOD success after the box office failure bodes well for the future of the franchise.

4

The Fall Guy

Directed By David Leitch

David Leitch has carved out a niche for himself in Hollywood with whimsically energetic action comedies that often don’t have a lot to say but are nonetheless entertaining to watch. So, it makes perfect sense for him to pay tribute to the 1980s show about a stuntman, bringing his idiosyncratic blend of cheesy comedy and over-the-top action to create an endearing action flick led by Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.

What doesn’t make sense is why such a cocktail of factors, all ideally geared towards the making of a blockbuster, would phenomenally underperform at the box office. There’s no reason for this charming movie to flop, and critics clearly agree because The Fall Guy has an 82% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Gosling and Blunt have an easygoing chemistry that grounds the ridiculous adventures of the main characters and Gosling’s charisma makes the over-the-top plot believable.

3

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Directed By George Miller

One of the recent box office flops that’ll surely become cult classics in the future is the latest addition to the Mad Max franchise. A prequel that re-imagines the past, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga inexplicably performed horribly at the box office, possibly costing the studio its anticipated next installment in the franchise. It didn’t exactly bomb, but it still got much less recognition than it deserved for creating an imaginative backstory for such an important character.

The potential to become a cult hit is strong with Furiosa, because poorly received franchise entries often get re-evaluated in the future and reclaimed as iconic classics long after its release. With Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth leading the action movie that delivers on the Mad Max staples of high-octane chase sequences and grand action set pieces, it’s a thrilling origin story that is sure to find its audience in the coming years.

2

Transformers One

Directed By Josh Cooley

As long as animation is thought of as a genre instead of a medium, it’ll continue to be underappreciated. As one might expect, animated movies are often the biggest cult classics because they rarely get their due on release, if they’re not coming from Disney or DreamWorks. Perhaps the very idea of a blockbuster franchise like Transformers going for a mainstream animated movie disappointed viewers, even though the toys date back to animated shows. But, whatever the reason, Transformers: One unfairly bombed at the box office.

Whatever its shortcomings on the commercial front, which can also be somewhat attributed to a poorly managed marketing campaign , Transformers One is one of the best animated movies of 2024, and it’s already garnered a cult following from fans who love the imaginative approach to storytelling and worldbuilding. As a prequel that sets up the known stories about the widely popular Transformers characters, it’s a unique installment in the franchise and a demonstration of how refreshing stories can be told if creativity takes precedence over business.

1

Megalopolis

Directed By Francis Ford Coppola

While Megalopolis did meet one global box office milestone, Francis Ford Coppola’s first movie in over a decade is perhaps the most surprising flop of 2024. The highly-anticipated release of Coppola’s passion project was met with disgruntled reviews from viewers who couldn’t make heads or tails of the affair, while the movie was widely panned by critics for being too whimsical to work. However, passion projects of celebrated filmmakers made to bring their whims to life rarely fail to become cult classics.

Adam Driver looks through a lens in Megalopolis still

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The box office collections may be low, critics may dislike the movie, and viewers may call it nonsensical, but the cult of people calling it a misunderstood masterpiece has already been born and will only grow with time. The highly commendable performances by the talented ensemble cast, the beautiful score, and, of course, the surreal meditation on humanity, all make it a sleeper hit, waiting for enough years to pass for it to be considered iconic.