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Disney is one of the biggest movie studios in the world, but it has also had a fair share of box office bombs, with these 10 being the worst. While Disney hit a massive box office milestone in 2025, taking a closer look at some of the results of its films through the years reveals a more complex picture.
That said, it is surprisingly complicated to say exactly what makes one bomb bigger than another. Raw numbers comparing budgets to box office seem to be the most sensible move, but budgets rarely consider a film's marketing spend, and do not always accurately reflect the film's total cost. In addition, studio marketing and exhibitor splits make things even more complicated.
In addition, Disney played with its content strategy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite Onward only earning $141 million against a budget of up to $200 million, that film's release was massively impacted by real-world events in March 2020. Many Disney releases that followed, like Mulan, earned much smaller figures due to evolving strategies in that period.
As a result, it does not make sense to consider those financial failures here. While the earnings of films like Raya and the Last Dragon and Turning Red were paltry, their runs impacted by COVID-19 were much more anomalous in Disney's history. So many other Disney movies were unquestionable failures for completely different reasons, whether it was brand strategies or something else entirely.
The Black Cauldron
At its time of release in 1985, The Black Cauldron was the most expensive animated movie of all time, carrying a budget of $44 million, and it earned only $21 million. While the losses suggested by these earnings are only a drop in the bucket compared to many others on this list, this failure nearly signaled the end of Disney.
The studio was not the powerhouse that it is considered today, and this failure allowed studios like Don Bluth Productions, who hired away much of Disney's talent, to grow even bigger. Even Nelvana's The Care Bears Movie was a bigger hit that year, earning $34 million.
Were it not for Disney's Renaissance, beginning with The Little Mermaid in 1989, The Black Cauldron would have been the beginning of the end for the studio. As a result, it is difficult not to see this as one of Disney's biggest bombs, despite losses on a smaller financial scale.
Mars Needs Moms
For a while, it seemed that every studio and director was inspired to get into performance capture animation. ImageMovers Digital was founded as a joint venture between The Polar Express director Robert Zemeckis and Walt Disney Studios in order to capitalize on this popular form.
Its second film, the 2011 box office failure Mars Needs Moms, quickly caused the studio to lay off the bulk of their employees before shutting down shortly after. When the film earned only $39 million against a budget of $150 million upon release, this was proven to be the right move.
Disney didn't appear to have faith in the project, but a result like this is still significant. Mars Needs Moms is now only talked about as one of the biggest bombs of all time.
Treasure Planet
Disney's Post-Renaissance Era was an interesting time for the studio that saw a few successes and a few huge failures as they slowly transitioned away from 2D animation and became more dependent on computer animation. Following Lilo & Stitch's success, the studio faltered with 2002's Treasure Planet.
Earning only $110 million against a budget of $140 million, the film's box office failure reflected audience trends, which had pivoted to greater interest in computer-animated features. Ice Age was the biggest animated film of the year, earning $383 million worldwide.
While Treasure Planet was not the last 2D animated film, its box office failure was the beginning of the end for the form at Disney.
Snow White (2025)
Snow White's impact on Disney is not yet entirely clear. The film was an enormous box office failure for the studio, earning only $205 million against a budget of nearly $337 million. For a moment, it seemed as if this failure would bring an end to Disney's live-action remakes, as development on Tangled was put on hold.
Only a few months later, however, Lilo & Stitch opened in theaters and became one of the biggest movies of 2025. This put Tangled back into development, but it remains to be seen how well Disney's future with live-action remakes will continue to perform.
In a few years, Snow White's box office failure will likely signal a larger shift in Disney's brand strategies. However, it is too recent to yet see exactly what that impact will be.
John Carter
Andrew Stanton has been one of Pixar's most dependable creatives when it comes to its animated projects, but his attempt to jump into live-action filmmaking failed to take off. John Carter is one of the most famous flops of all time, earning $284 million against a budget of $250 million.
All in, the adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel is estimated to have lost nearly $200 million for the studio.
There are many reasons why this could have been the case, but retitling the film from the compelling A Princess of Mars novel to the bland name John Carter in a pandering attempt not to distance male audiences certainly did not help. John Carter was a massive failure for Disney, and may have caused the studio to rethink its franchises as well as new science fiction films.
Elio
Elio was a massive failure for Pixar, earning only $154 million against a budget that ranged from $150-200 million. Especially following the failures of Lightyear and Strange World so closely, this result was especially worrying and seems to have been significant in changing Disney's animated strategies with original films.
Elio was not Pixar's best, but it had strong moments. Unfortunately, following a turbulent period of production and massive changes throughout, the eventual film wound up drawing little interest when it was released in 2025.
Notably, Pixar has been pushing further into the territory of sequels in recent years, and disappointing box office performances, including this one, are the reason why. While Elio failed to garner attention, movies like Inside Out 2 have gone on to earn more than $1 billion globally, setting an influential precedent.
Strange World
Strange World was a massive failure when it was released in 2024, earning only $73 million against a budget of up to $185 million. This was one of three failures that presented science fiction adventure stories with a greater focus on male audiences, including the aforementioned Elio as well as Lightyear.
Since then, it seems that the studio has presented a shift for its future to be more female-focused. Likely due to failures like this one, movies like Hexed have had their protagonists changed from male characters to female ones.
It is difficult to say exactly why movies like Strange World have not connected, but it is interesting to see the effects that it has had on the studio's slate, and what other adjustments could be made as a result to avoid future catastrophes like this one.
The Lone Ranger
Disney's The Lone Ranger was an attempt to reboot the popular TV show that began in 1949, but it failed miserably in connecting with audiences. The film brought in director Gore Verbinski and star Johnny Depp in hopes of recreating the pair's incredible success found with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
Instead, The Lone Ranger only grossed $260 million against a budget ot $215 million, a figure that is reported to have lost nearly $200 million for the studio when marketing costs were factored in.
Disney had hoped to build a franchise that would last for many films, but the western adventure did not much appeal for audiences upon release in 2013. Plans for any sequels were abandoned after the movie's disappointing performance.
Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny
One of the most surprising flops in recent years was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Despite decent box office success for the franchise to that point, with the fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull earning $786 million, it seemed that the interest in a fifth chapter was not as high as expected.
Carrying an astonishing budget of $419 million, Dial of Destiny only earned $383.9 million. There are many reasons this might be, including a loss of faith in Lucasfilm during Disney's handling of the Star Wars franchise, or the fact that Harrison Ford was in his eighties.
Still, this was a massive and memorable flop that has curtailed any plans for further franchise expansion of the Indiana Jones series. It will surely be rebooted eventually, but not any time soon, thanks to this incredible disappointment.
The Marvels
It is hard to consider any of Disney's box office failures as being more impactful than when The Marvels bombed in 2023. While the film was not awful, audiences showed almost no interest compared to other Marvel fare, causing it to earn only $206 million against a reported budget of $374 million.
This staggering loss is tremendous on its own, but it was also reflective of failures in a larger brand strategy. The movie was Marvel's biggest attempt yet to unite its television series, including WandaVision and Ms. Marvel, with their big-screen brand that had earned over $1 billion with the first Captain Marvel.
This failure was enormous on a financial scale, and it has since caused the studio to rethink its priorities concerning streaming and theatrical. This has caused the studio's series, including Daredevil: Born Again, to become much more isolated from its films. It remains to be seen if Marvel, one of Disney's biggest brands, can still fully bounce back.
Source: Box Office Mojo
