There are sure to be big hits at the 2020 box office, but there are also quite a few movies that may struggle considering a variety of factors. Some of the movies that are likely to be box office hits are superhero blockbusters and highly-anticipated sequels and remakes. Unfortunately, there are always plenty of other movies that tend to either flop at the box office or underperform.
Interestingly, 2020 looks to be a vastly different year than 2019. First off, there’s no Star Wars movie this year and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is taking a step back by only releasing two movies instead of three. Furthermore, the blockbuster films that are releasing aren’t all part of groundbreaking franchises, though they are still household names. And to top it all off, Hollywood studios are trying to experiment with a variety of genres and properties.
The fact is, at this point, movies that would’ve been astounding successes 10 or 20 years ago no longer work in the grand scheme of things. With that in mind, here are the biggest box office risks of 2020.
Sonic the Hedgehog
To say Sonic the Hedgehog has some disadvantages at its back is putting it gently. Video game movies don’t have strong box office track records and Paramount Pictures has an even worse modern box office track record with launching family titles, and while the overhauled design of the titular lead appeased longtime Sonic fans, it’s hard to say if the film is generating much interest from the broader public. However, Paramount wisely decided to move Sonic from a crowded November 2019 release to a President’s Day weekend release date, a holiday frame that’s been kind to plenty of family movies in the past. So with no other major family movies releasing at the same time, Sonic could end up succeeding.
Bloodshot
Vin Diesel has managed to have major roles in two of the biggest franchises in history - the Fast & Furious series and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Outside of those two sagas, though, Diesel tends to strike out at the box office. The only movies outside of those two franchises he’s starred in that opened to over $20 million were The Chronicles of Riddick, The Pacifier, and two XxX movies, three of which released at least 15 years ago. That doesn’t bode well for his newest star vehicle, Bloodshot. Neither does the fact that original ambitions to have the movie kick off a cinematic universe based on Valiant Comics properties for Sony/Columbia seem to have been scuttled in recent months. Still, live-action superhero movies are usually reliable box office moneymakers, and being the lone action blockbuster of March 2020 could help Bloodshot beat out the odds and give Diesel one of his biggest non-F&F/MCU successes to date.
The New Mutants
The New Mutants was originally supposed to release in April 2018, but after numerous delays and Disney buying 21st Century Fox, the film has found itself in a peculiar gray area. It appears that it will now makes its April 2020 date after all. Movies delayed for such a pronounced amount of time rarely excel at the box office and there’s a good chance that The New Mutants gets widely ignored by audiences just like the last Disney/Fox mutant feature, Dark Phoenix. However, horror movies have been scoring unprecedented levels of successful box office in recent years and fusing superheroes with that genre could be a recipe for box office glory. The fact that The New Mutants is a far cheaper project than Dark Phoenix means the bar for box office success is much lower. After all it’s been through, The New Mutants even getting released at all feels like a victory in and of itself.
Artemis Fowl
In the middle of Disney’s 2019 and 2020 release slates centered heavily on live-action remakes and superhero movies is Artemis Fowl, a throwback title to the kind of PG-rated live-action family movies Disney used to produce a decade ago. What was once the norm for Disney is now a very noticeable exception. Artemis Fowl was originally scheduled for an August 2019 release but got delayed into 2020. Now this Kenneth Branagh-directed movie is perched at the end of May 2020 in a slot that has seen a lot of box office misses for Disney in recent years through the likes of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Tomorrowland.
However, last year’s Aladdin proved that the right Disney title can succeed in this timeframe and the extreme popularity of the Artemis Fowl book series could help life it to box office success. Its biggest hurdles at this point are the high level of family movie competition in May 2020 from the likes of Scoob! and a new SpongeBob movie, as well as the fact that Disney has, puzzlingly, failed to restart the Artemis Fowl marketing (a teaser for its original August 2019 release was dropped over Thanksgiving 2018) several months prior to its release.
Top Gun: Maverick
Much like Vin Diesel, modern-day Tom Cruise is a reliable moneymaker in one big franchise (in this case, Mission: Impossible) but hasn’t managed to find consistent box office success outside of that series. That’s a far cry from the days when Cruise could reliably produce mega-hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Since War of the Worlds in 2005, the only non-Mission: Impossible movie he’s headlined to cross $100 million domestically is 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow. The fact that Top Gun: Maverick is connected to one of Cruise’s most popular movies should theoretically help it avoid being a box office dud like Jack Reacher: Never Going Back. However, audiences have been turning up their noses in recent months to a number of seemingly surefire sequels (chiefly, Terminator: Dark Fate and Doctor Sleep) and the demand for more Top Gun adventures doesn’t feel nearly as pronounced as the demand for more Jurassic Park movies prior to Jurassic World’s release.
Morbius
The next stage of Sony’s Marvel universe is about to arrive. Following in the footsteps of box office juggernaut Venom is Morbius, another feature based on a darker, horror-tinged Spider-Man foe starring a big-name actor (in this case, Jared Leto). Sony has smartly given Morbius the end-of-summer spot that’s been used to great box office success in recent years, including for Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad, and the last two Mission: Impossible movies. However, Morbius has a number of disadvantages that Venom didn’t have to face, chief among them being that the character Morbius is nowhere near as popular as Venom while its July 31, 2020 release date means it’ll be coming off a whole month of audiences being bombarded with blockbuster tentpoles, like Free Guy and Tenet. The marketing for Morbius will have to work overtime to make this movie stand out in a crowded marketplace, though its release date and the strong box office track record of Marvel movies do give it some advantages of its own.
BIOS
BIOS is directed by Miguel Sapochnik and is an apocalyptic take on the man-and-his-dog story, as one of the last people on Earth (played by Tom Hanks) builds a robot pal for himself and his dog. While Hanks has had a handful of box office misfires, like Larry Crowne and Inferno, over the years, he’s usually a reliable draw, as most recently seen by the sleeper hit A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. However, October 2020 is packed with options for moviegoers thanks to Death on the Nile and Venom 2. An original title like BIOS could get lost in the shuffle quite easily if Universal/Amblin doesn’t put together the right marketing campaign that emphasizes the inspirational qualities Hanks’ previous hits are based on.
Snake Eyes
Taking a cue from their 2018 title Bumblebee, Paramount is attempting to revive an action blockbuster franchise based on a Hasbro toy line (in this case, G.I. Joe) by spinning off its most popular character into a solo production that can reboot the whole saga. This puts a lot of pressure on Snake Eyes’ shoulders and it remains to be seen if Paramount can put together a marketing campaign, as well as a well-received movie, that can reverse the downward box office trajectory the G.I. Joe movies. Will people see this new movie as a refreshing back-to-basics approach for the G.I. Joe series or will moviegoers dismiss it as a cash grab? It could go either way, but one advantage in Snake Eyes’ corner is that Bumblebee did end up doing decent business at the box office, so there are far worse models for Snake Eyes to slavishly adhere to.
Godzilla vs. Kong
Since November 2008, every single pre-Thanksgiving weekend, save for 2018 when Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald underperformed, has managed to deliver a blockbuster that’s grossed $229+ million domestically. The next pre-Thanksgiving blockbuster hoping to continue this tradition is Godzilla vs. Kong. What’s interesting, though, is that Godzilla vs. Kong belongs to the MonsterVerse, which has never released a movie approaching that $229 million minimum. To boot, the last MonsterVerse title, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, hit a new domestic box office low for the franchise. Pairing Godzilla with an iconic beast like King Kong over a holiday weekend will likely ensure a noticeably bigger box office haul than King of the Monsters. However, the aforementioned Fantastic Beasts sequel showed that not every pre-Thanksgiving blockbuster finds box office success, which casts a dark shadow over this film.
Dune
Warner Bros/Legendary couldn’t have picked a better release date for their new big-budget take on Dune. This new directorial effort from Denis Villeneuve is scheduled for December 18, 2020, which means it’s now following in the footsteps of the Hobbit trilogy, Aquaman, and four of the new Star Wars movies in being the big live-action blockbuster for the end-of-the-year holidays. That’s an impressive release slot that helps out a movie that does have a number of hurdles to cross in its quest to become a box office hit. For one thing, Dune’s source material is far more niche in popularity than Middle-earth, DC Comics, and Star Wars, while science-fiction properties that don’t come with a Marvel Studios or Lucasfilm logo have been a tough sell to audiences in recent years. One such property that failed to make waves at the box office was Blade Runner 2049, Villeneuve’s previous movie. However, with a special Christmastime release date at its back, that allows it to play for weeks on end and build up word-of-mouth, Dune could have a chance to overcome these obstacles. Its chances will increase exponentially if WB/Legendary put together as distinctive of a marketing campaign as the ones they’ve created for past collaborations like Pokemon: Detective Pikachu and Kong: Skull Island.
