The much vaunted and then quickly derided "digital fur technology" used to transform actors and dancers into bipedal cats looked horrific. Photo / Supplied
The much vaunted and then quickly derided "digital fur technology" used to transform actors and dancers into bipedal cats looked horrific. Photo / Supplied
The biggest box office bombs in history are The 13th Warrior (starring Antonio Banderas), 47 Ronin (starring Keanu Reeves) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (starring Eric Idle and Uma Thurman).
None of this year's bombs are a chance of making the top three, but they were massive disappointments nonetheless.
Here are the movies that came and went in 2019 without making an impact on the box office.
The director's latest film, Richard Jewell, had an absolute shocker when it opened at the US box office mid-December, making just $6.8 million on its debut weekend.
Richard Jewell dramatises the real-life story of the innocent security guard who found himself targeted in a devastating media frenzy following a deadly blast at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Jewell was initially hailed as a hero after he spotted the pipe bomb but was soon identified by journalists as an FBI suspect.
READ MORE: • The 11 best films of 2019 The film has been at the centre of a firestorm over its depiction of a reporter trading sex for stories and has prompted legal threats over the "shocking" and "untrue" portrayal from the reporter's real-life newspaper.
The film, which stars Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm and Olivia Wilde, has actually been getting good reviews with Peter Debruge from Variety writing: "A good story is a good story, and Eastwood knows how to tell a good story."
But regardless, the film (which opens in Australia in February) has failed to strike a chord with moviegoers in the US and is on track to be one of the biggest box office bombs of 2019.
Cats
From the moment the Cats trailer dropped all those months ago, we knew we were in for something - it just wasn't 100 per cent clear whether it was something oddly great or a spectacular disaster.
Then the movie, based on Andrew Lloyd-Webber's stage musical, came out. Oh lordy.
The much vaunted and then quickly derided "digital fur technology" used to transform actors and dancers into bipedal cats looked horrific, a bizarre hybrid of human faces, hands and feet coupled with badly CGI-ed fur and fake tails. The CGI came in for such a bollocking, director Tom Hooper had to release an updated version of the film a few days after release.
The critics were also scathing in their reviews - a measly 18 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus reading, "Despite its fur-midable cast, this Cats adaptation is a clawful mistake that will leave most viewers begging to be put out of their mew-sery". Ouch.
The audience score, usually much more forgiving for movies designed to have mainstream appeal, didn't fare much better - 55 per cent.
It bombed at the box office - a poor showing of $US6.5 million on its opening day in the US, against a production budget of $US100 million.
The studio (Universal) has even quietly pulled Cats ' Oscar campaign.
Charlie's Angels
Elizabeth Banks wrote, produced, directed and starred in the third instalment in the Charlie's Angels film series that introduced a new generation of Angels: Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska and Naomi Scott.
But the all-female action flick failed to kick butt at the box office, barely making a profit. And the critics weren't impressed either, with 3AWs's Jim Schembri describing it as "not so much a reboot as an act of cinematic vandalism".
Banks wasn't bothered, though, tweeting: "Well, if you're going to have a flop, make sure your name is on it at least 4x. I'm proud of #CharliesAngels and happy it's in the world."
Some critics argued that the reboot was unnecessary from the outset, but the hilarious Banks hit back at them in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
"You've had 37 Spider-Man movies and you're not complaining!" Banks said. "I think women are allowed to have one or two action franchises every 17 years – I feel totally fine with that."
Serenity
You know a film is bad when the most memorable thing about it is the fact you get to see Matthew McConaughey's bum.
Don't get me wrong, it's a spectacular bum, but not even his crack was enough to cover the cracks in the plot.
Serenity, which co-stars Anne Hathaway, is a mystery thriller about a fishing boat captain who finds himself ensnared in a reality where nothing is what it seems.
Confused? Rightfully so.
"It's a sweaty collection of neo-noir motifs with a twist so seismically stupid that you're not only left with whiplash but months of intense physiotherapy," wrote Patrick Smith from The Independent.
After Serenity was bashed by critics, Hathaway conceded that "for some it just doesn't work".
"There is no failure, only learned events, not everyone has to like everything, and the critical response doesn't change my feelings about the movie," the actress wrote.
The film cost $36 million to make but collected just $20.9 million at the box office.
Not even the glorious Nicole Kidman was enough to save this stinker, which also stars Ansel Elgort, Luke Wilson and Sarah Paulson.
Based on a 2013 novel of the same name, The Goldfinch is about a boy in New York who is taken in by a wealthy Upper East Side family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The film suffered a similar fate to the boy's parents, making just $14.4 million worldwide with a budget of $65 million. Bomb.
News.com.au's Wenlei Ma wrote that it was "a flat and lumbering albeit beautifully filmed drama that bores more than it entertains", but other critics were nowhere near as kind.
"A botch job for the ages," wrote Peter Travers from Rolling Stone. "A dismal, interminable drama," said 3AW's Jim Schembri.movie," the actress wrote.
Everyone lost their minds when Keanu Reeves hit the red carpet with his new girlfriend earlier this year. But there was considerably less interest in his movie Replicas, which was the epitome of a box office bomb.
In the film, Reeves plays a scientist who becomes obsessed with bringing back his family members who died in a traffic accident.
The early reviews were bad, with Tim Cogshell from FilmWeek simply writing, "This is really terrible."
Critic Katie Walsh from The LA Times wrote: "The filmmakers manage to avoid every potentially interesting choice for far dumber, and far more inexplicable, conclusions".
Replicas was made on a $43 million budget but only raked in $3.4 million in the US on its opening weekend, making it the worst wide release opening of Reeves' career.
It ended up making just $13.4 million worldwide. Ouch
