It used to be easy to spot a Hollywood disaster. You’d hear it in the news. See it in the numbers. Empty theaters, brutal reviews, late-night talk show jabs. A high-budget flop would echo across the industry. Waterworld. Battlefield Earth. John Carter. They didn’t just fail—they failed loudly.
Not anymore.
Today, even a $320 million blockbuster like Netflix’s The Electric State, starring some of Hollywood’s most bankable names, can quietly vanish—barely noticed by the public, let alone criticized in any sustained way
(D’Alessandro, 2024).
It was a film built for attention. Directed by the Russo Brothers (yes, the ones behind Avengers: Endgame), and fronted by Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Stanley Tucci, and Giancarlo Esposito—names that, in theory, should guarantee buzz. But it came and went with almost no cultural imprint. Critics gave it a lukewarm reception. Audiences shrugged. And Netflix… just moved on.
No red ink. No theatrical reckoning. Just another tile in an endless scroll.
When Star Power Stops Powering Anything
It’s not just The Electric State. Johnny Depp—once Hollywood royalty,headlined The Lone Ranger, which cost Disney north of $250 million and barely earned that back worldwide
(Barnes, 2023).
Despite the cowboy aesthetic, action set-pieces, and a marketing push, it was critically panned and commercially cold.
Meanwhile, younger stars like Millie Bobby Brown, coming off Stranger Things fame, have headlined multiple Netflix originals (Enola Holmes, Damsel, The Electric State) that generated viewership, on paper, but little cultural traction.
The truth? Star power doesn’t travel the way it used to. Familiar faces can’t save a film if the story underneath is hollow. The algorithm can push the content, but it can’t push the enthusiasm. And without that… there’s no moment.
What Happens When Acting Is No Longer the Core?
Across a growing list of underwhelming releases, there’s a troubling pattern: average performances, oversaturated CGI, formulaic storytelling, and a conspicuous absence of memorable acting. It’s not that everyone’s suddenly bad at their jobs, but when green screens dominate the production environment and dialogue is used to patch over plot holes, nuance gets lost.
Studios have leaned heavily on franchise formulas. Especially superhero ones. But audiences are showing signs of fatigue. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels, Morbius—each hyped, each expensive, and each met with a collective sigh. Even big-budget non-franchise films like Jungle Cruise or Red Notice—stacked with stars—felt hollow, more designed by committee than made by vision.
In this landscape, even good directors are struggling. The Russo Brothers—who once delivered the highest-grossing film of all time, have since made Cherry, The Gray Man, and The Electric State. All of them failed to make a dent. Are they worse filmmakers now? Probably not. But the system they’re creating has changed.
The Algorithm Sweeps It Under the Rug
Netflix, for its part, doesn’t need to explain itself. It rarely shares full viewing metrics, offers no box office data, and isn’t bound by opening weekend headlines. A $200 million misfire? Quietly forgotten. Another “Top 10 Today” badge slapped on a title, and the machine keeps churning.
Films like The Midnight Sky (George Clooney), The Bubble (Judd Apatow), Bright (Will Smith), and The Adam Project (Ryan Reynolds) all carried theatrical-scale budgets. None had a lasting cultural impact. Some received harsh reviews. Others were just… forgettable.
And yet, none of these movies were seen as flops. Not really. Because we don’t have a shared metric for failure anymore.
Theaters did. Box office numbers, per-theater averages, sellouts—or lack thereof. But now? Netflix reports in broad strokes. For instance, they posted a subscriber count of over 269 million in Q1 2025, with revenue hitting $9.6 billion. That’s up from $8.1 billion the same time last year (Netflix Q1 2025 Earnings Report).
So even if a $320M film flops, it’s wrapped into overall content spend—no headlines, no drama, no narrative.
Ticket Prices Are Up, But Enthusiasm Is Down
As for traditional theaters, the math has become brutal. The average movie ticket in the U.S. now costs $11.75, up 17 percent since 2019. Premium formats like IMAX and Dolby push prices even higher, sometimes north of $20. For many, that’s simply not worth the risk on a movie they’re unsure about (Fuster, 2023).
And audiences are unsure about almost everything these days. Ask people what’s coming out next weekend, and most won’t know. That same pre-release buzz that once surrounded films like Inception, The Dark Knight, Titanic, or Avengers: Endgame? It’s gone. Replaced by scrolling.
A 2024 Nielsen survey found that only 14% of viewers under 35 considered new movie releases “must-see” events, compared to 49% in 2012. That’s not a small shift. That’s a cultural rupture.
Are Any Films Still Drawing Crowds?
Yes—but far fewer.
Top Gun: Maverick was a rare outlier. So was Barbie, Oppenheimer, and, to a lesser degree, Avatar: The Way of Water. Each tapped into something different—nostalgia, cultural relevance, directorial ambition. They weren’t just movies. They were events.
But these are exceptions, not rules. Most theatrical releases now fade fast. Even ones with good Rotten Tomatoes scores or strong casts. Audiences show up cautiously. Word of mouth helps. But few movies now lead conversations. Most just join them briefly, before getting replaced by something else in the queue.
So… What Now?
It’s tempting to declare the system broken. That storytelling is dead. Hollywood has lost its way. But maybe the better question is: What do we expect movies to be now?
If the algorithm hides failure, if streaming dissolves hype, if stars no longer shine the way they used to, what does success look like? And if a $300 million movie can be watched by millions but forgotten in days… what does that say about the stories we’re telling? Or the ones we’re choosing not to?
There’s no clean answer here. Only a lot of open threads, half-finished thoughts, and uncomfortable truths.
And maybe that’s okay.
Maybe what matters most isn’t whether a movie “succeeds” anymore—but whether it leaves a trace.
References
- Alexander, J. (2023, November 6). Why Hollywood keeps failing to build cinematic universes. The Verge. Link
- Barnes, B. (2023, November 8). Disney’s box office slump: What went wrong? The New York Times. Link
- D’Alessandro, A. (2024, April 5). Netflix’s $320M The Electric State quietly fizzles—What that says about the industry. Deadline. Link
- Fuster, J. (2023, December 21). The movie theater model is changing—And fast. The Wrap. Link
- Lee, E. (2024, February 14). How streaming hides Hollywood’s biggest flops. Vulture. Link
- Netflix. (2025). Q1 Earnings Report. Link
