22 movie blockbusters nobody remembers

We love Adam Sandler, but he’s made some crappy movies. The Ridiculous 6 and Jack & Jill arguably rank as the crappiest, but the former streamed on Netflix and the latter didn’t crack our $100 million threshold, so we’re going with . In it, Sandler (Chuck) and Kevin James (Larry) play straight firefighters pretending to be a gay couple to secure life insurance benefits for Larry’s family. It eked out $120 million, but even hardcore Sandler fans put this one out of their memories thanks to its homophobia, misogyny, and dearth of laughs.

They can’t all be classics, right? The good folks at Dreamworks gave us , a perfectly OK comedy featuring amusing animals, a good environmental message, decent animation, and an utterly ridiculous cast that included Bruce Willis, Wanda Sykes, Steve Carell, Catherine O’Hara, William Shatner, Garry Shandling, Nick Nolte, Eugene Levy, and Allison Janney. It grossed $155 million domestically (and $336 million worldwide), thus putting the kibosh on hoped-for sequels and leaving lots of tie-in products in the discount bin. Still, $155 million! In 2006, no less!

This is Sam Raimi’s Alice In Wonderland, something that seemed so right in theory and turned out so wrong in reality. A miscast James Franco disastrously channels Johnny Depp as The Wizard of Oz and a game Mila Kunis doesn’t quite click as The Wicked Witch in , a Wizard Of Oz prequel. Raimi goes overboard production-wise, it’s way too scary for kids, and it lacks magic. Lost in all this is a wonderful, touching performance by Michelle Williams as Glinda the Good Witch. Though it grossed nearly $500 million worldwide, Oz The Great And Powerful was instantly forgettable—and forgotten.

The long-awaited reunion of Pretty Woman director Garry Marshall and stars Julia Roberts and Richard Gere turned out to be , a harmless, mediocre romantic comedy. Roberts plays a woman who has fled three weddings (so far), prompting reporter Gere to write a story about her. When they fall in love, which they must, will she run away again? Runaway Bride rode the popularity of Pretty Woman and the Roberts-Gere pairing (which didn’t click quite as well here) to a $150 million North American gross (and $309 million worldwide), but these days it’s a blip on the radar of all involved.

TV actor turned director Clark Johnson made his feature directorial debut with this serviceable action flick based, like so many other so-so movies, on a popular old TV series. boasts that classic theme music, Samuel L. Jackson chewing the scenery as Hondo, and strong work from young co-stars Colin Farrell and Jeremy Renner. But it was all just so … unnecessary. Still, audiences liked it to the tune of $117 million domestic and another $91 million internationally, which translated to … no sequel. CBS rebooted the series in 2017, canceled it in May 2023, and then days later.

In , Dwayne Johnson plays a rescue helicopter pilot who races from earthquake-stricken Los Angeles to save his estranged wife (Carla Gugino) and their daughter (Alexandria Daddario) in San Francisco. Try not to laugh at Johnson and Gugino as they outrun a tsunami in a boat. The movie established Johnson as a bona fide action hero (versus just a supporting player), but it’s preposterous as hell. Still, San Andreas grossed nearly a half-billion dollars worldwide ($155 million in the U.S.), but these days it gets lost in the shuffle among Johnson’s better films.

Be honest, you can still hum bits of the A.R. Rahman/Gulzar song “Jai Ho,” but you can’t recall the plot of the film it’s in. As a refresher: is about a Muslim teen (Dev Patel) who competes on the Hindi equivalent of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Colorful, inventively shot, and wonderfully cast (especially Patel and Freida Pinto), Slumdog Millionaire grossed $140 million (and $378 million worldwide) and won eight Oscars, including Best Picture. While it turned out to be more sugar-rush dessert than memorable meal, it ranks as the best film on this list, so it’s worth rediscovering.

Legions of fans revered Tron, a wildly ambitious sci-fi epic hampered by dodgy (even for 1982) FX. But if you wait long enough, all fanboy wishes come true and in 2010 Disney released , a sequel that promised the return of Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner, and state-of-the-art FX. Bridges gave it his all, Boxleitner made the most of his extended cameo, and the visuals rocked (except for the de-aged Bridges), but the crucial father-son (Bridges and Garrett Hedlund) storyline misfired, resulting in a glossy, loud, and impersonal experience that few people seem eager to revisit although it raked in $400 million worldwide. Still, a third Tron is in the works, with Jared Leto attached to star.

The late Wolfgang Petersen tried valiantly to transform The Iliad into an epic war movie, but came up waaaay short. Ponderous and endless (at a whopping 163 minutes), rarely lets leading man Brad Pitt do more than look pretty—though, boy, does he glisten (as Achilles). Eric Bana (Hector) and Orlando Bloom (Paris) seem uncomfortable and miscast, respectively, though Diane Kruger (Helen), Peter O’Toole (Priam), and Brian Cox (Agamemnon) shine. Like a Trojan horse, Troy found an audience, delivering $497 million across the globe ($133 million from North America), but no one remembers it, much less considers it a classic.

We’re feeling a little guilty about including on our rundown. It ain’t a classic, but this comedy delivered the laughs from beginning to end (and even after the end, with some great bloopers), and it nicely showcased the talents of leads Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Emma Roberts, and Will Poulter, as well as supporting players Kathryn Hahn and Nick Offerman. We’re The Millers also drove home $270 million worldwide (including $150 million in America). Yet no one seems to remember it, making it our go-to hidden gem.

Harrison Ford flounders in Robert Zemeckis’ Hitchcockian horror film . Though moody and atmospheric, and even with a strong performance by Michelle Pfeiffer as a woman who believes her husband (Ford) murdered someone, Zemeckis can’t sew all the threads into a cohesive whole. And so, the thrills, including a séance and a possession, hardly thrill. It grossed a hefty $291 million worldwide on a $100 million budget, but no one mentions What Lies Beneath when referencing the best horror movies of the past 25 years or the noteworthy film in the careers of Zemeckis, Pfeiffer, or Ford.

Back before Mel Gibson went off the rails, he starred with Helen Hunt in the perfectly agreeable romantic comedy , which let a surprisingly playful Gibson riff as a male chauvinist pig blessed—or maybe cursed—with the ability to hear women’s thoughts. Gibson’s ad exec realizes he’s a jerk and tries to course correct. Director Nancy Meyers elicits laughs, romance, and heart, and provokes some good questions, too. The movie performed well, grossing $186 million in North America (and $192 million more overseas), but it was already receding from memory when Gibson very publicly fell out of favor.

Arguably the worst film on this list, casts John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy as a quartet of unhappy guys who find joy in riding their motorcycles together but find trouble when they encounter a bad-guy biker gang led, of course, by Ray Liotta. Cue lots of lame jokes about aging and a shrill bit of corporate synergy (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition). How bad was the movie? The Hell’s Angels sued Disney! Though no one remembers anything about it now—maybe other than Peter Fonda’s humorous cameo—Wild Hogs grossed $168 million at the U.S. box office.