The biggest box office hits and misses of 2018

2018 has been a massive year for movies with the likes of Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Incredibles 2 absolutely demolishing the box office. But cinemas haven’t completely relied on blockbusters in 2018, as a number of smaller-scale productions have also notched up major profits.

However, for every success story there’s also a Happytime Murders.

Here are some of biggest box office hits and misses of 2018…

Hit: Black Panther

Budget: £166 million
Global box office: £1 billion

The first superhero film to feature a predominately black cast, Black Panther was more than just a Marvel movie, it was a cultural event. It did absolutely silly business at the box office, becoming the ninth-highest grossing film of all time. Avengers: Infinity War may have eclipsed it with its £1.6 billion haul, but then it cost twice as much to make. We also named Black Panther our favourite superhero movie of 2018 here.

Miss: Solo: A Star Wars Story

Budget: £198 million
Global box office: £311 million

Solo: A Star Wars Story might have grossed far more than any of the other failures on this list, but it only managed a profit of £113 million which barely covers the cost of prints and press. For this franchise, that’s a flop. It seems audiences just weren’t interested in seeing anyone other than Harrison Ford play the legendary smuggler, despite Alden Ehrenreich giving a solid performance as a younger, more naive version of the character, and the film generally receiving positive reviews.

Hit: A Quiet Place

Budget: £13 million
Global box office: £269 million

Perhaps one of the most surprising and satisfying success stories of the year comes from John Krasinski, who directed and starred in this excruciatingly tense sci-fi horror, where making the slightest bit of noise could result in being devoured by a leggy alien. Word of mouth certainly played its part in A Quiet Place’s impressive profit, and now a sequel is officially in development for release in 2020.

Miss: A Wrinkle in Time

Budget: £79 million
Global box office: £104 million

The powerful line-up of Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling, with Ava DuVernay directing, couldn’t even save this Disney dud. Adapted from Madeleine L’Engle’s classic novel, A Wrinkle in Time received middling reviews and, after its advertising budget pushed costs over a quarter of a billion dollars, the House of Mouse ended up making a hefty loss.

Hit: Halloween

Budget: £8 million
Global box office: £200 million

The blood-thirst for the Halloween franchise is still well and truly there, with this 11th instalment of the series not only boasting the best opening weekend figures for a movie with a female lead over the age of 55, but it’s also now the highest-grossing slasher film of all time. Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the role of Laurie Strode to square off with serial killer Michael Myers once again, but this time she was a little more prepared.

Miss: The Happytime Murders

Budget: £32 million
Global box office: £21 million

At one point, someone presumably thought the combination of Melissa McCarthy and foul-mouthed Muppets would be too hilarious for audiences to miss. But they were wrong. This 15-rated take on Sesame Street appealed to virtually no one, producing one of the worst box office hauls in McCarthy’s career so far.

Hit: Crazy Rich Asians

Budget: £23 million
Global box office: £188 million

Based on the 2013 Kevin Kwan novel of the same name, Crazy Rich Asians was a huge box office smash for Warner Bros. who acquired the distribution in a fierce bidding war back in 2016. The studio’s bet that there was an audience hungry for a comedy with a near-exclusively Asian cast – the first from a major Hollywood studio in years – paid off handsomely. Two sequels, filmed back to back, are coming in the near future.

Miss: Robin Hood

Budget: £79 million
Global box office: £51 million

Bafflingly reimagined in a sort of parallel universe town that looks nothing like Nottingham, where the inhabitants wear seemingly machine-stitched clothing, this new take on Robin Hood, starring Taron Egerton, was unsurprisingly slated by critics. It only came out at the end of November, but has bombed so heavily at the box office that it seems unlikely we’ll be taking a trip back to Sherwood Forest any time soon.

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