It’s become tradition for some of your favorite books, video games, musicals, podcasts, and more to inspire big-screen adaptations. With a built-in audience already enjoying the source material, Hollywood tends to rely on these projects to get butts in the seats. That is, if they’re executed properly. In a triumphant year of good, of course, there was a world of bad.
It’s not always fun to admit when there’s a flop on your hands, but 2025 sure did have some box office and critical flops. From an unnecessary remake of a beloved H.G. Wells novel to a Disney animated classic that inevitably received the live-action treatment, these six films just didn’t vibe with audiences or critics. We end the year by talking about them one last time.
1
‘The Electric State’
Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle and Chris Pratt as Keats looking at something offscreen in The Electric State.Image via Netflix
Everything and everyone associated with The Electric State should have contributed to the film’s success. Instead, we’re discussing how the Netflix film turned out to be a bit of a disaster. MCU favorites Anthony and Joe Russo brought Simon Stålenhag’s illustrated novel to life in poor fashion. Starring Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown, the film follows orphaned teen Michelle Greene (Brown) in a retro-futuristic 1990s America where a massive technological shift has isolated humans in virtual reality while sentient robots live in exile after a failed uprising. Her life changes forever when Cosmo (voiced by Alan Tudyk), a toy robot, appears, seemingly controlled by her younger brother, Christopher (Woody Norman), who she believed was dead. She embarks on a cross-country road trip with the mysterious robot and a low-rent smuggler, John D. Keats (Pratt), to find her brother while uncovering the truth behind the war and humanity’s addiction to technology. While the latter is a brilliant concept that has become increasingly prevalent in film and television, the film adaptation didn’t do it justice.
To call it a “meh” film might be generous. Especially as fans of the individuals involved. Aside from the two big-name leads, The Electric State boasted a brilliant ensemble including Jason Alexander, Giancarlo Esposito, Holly Hunter, and Ke Huy Quan in human roles and Anthony Mackie, Woody Harrelson, Jenny Slate, Brian Cox, Hank Azaria, and Colman Domingo in voice roles. Suppose maybe it was Rob Gronkowski as Blitz, the football-themed robot that pushed it over the edge. Pratt, beloved for his portrayal as Peter Quinn, felt too much like Star Lord, unable to separate himself from the iconic part. The film just lacked an engaging spark to make the IP truly come to life. It made sense as to why the Russos went in the direction they did visually. The film just fell flat in the process. Camp is a good direction if done well. Perhaps having experience with larger-than-life, overstuffed blockbusters was the incorrect approach to take in this film. Not everything can be as major as the MCU.
2
‘Regretting You’
McKenna Grace sitting next to Mason Thames in ‘Regretting You’.Image via Paramount Pictures
Mason Thames had a truly remarkable year. Between Black Phone 2 and the live-action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon, the young rising star is on his way to a glorious career. Unfortunately, being a part of Regretting You will be one of those spots on the resume we’ll hopefully forget, as he might regret. Adapted from the best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover, Forgetting You was a melodramatic misfire. Directed by Josh Boone, with a script by Susan McMartin, Morgan Grant (Allison Williams) and her daughter Clara (McKenna Grace) have their lives upended by a tragic car crash that reveals an affair between Morgan’s husband, Chris (Scott Eastwood), and her sister Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald). The tragedy forces them to confront secrets, resentments, and their fractured relationship as they navigate a new life of love. Because, of course, it’s always love in the end that helps us move on. A story about grief and betrayal, the journey to forgiveness came far too easily, undermining the source material’s power.
Cheesy and rightly predictable, Regretting You felt like a dated piece that cinema has passed over as of late. With tonal swings all over the place, Williams’ stilted performance lacked maternal necessities as Morgan, Regretting You faltered fast. With Thames and Dave Franco taking on the romantic mantles in Clara and Morgan’s lives, there was some hope, though. The chemistry between Thames and Grace was promising, but was it their story? Regretting You was too sappy to garner genuine emotion. The most fascinating part of Regretting You is that, despite critical pans, it actually seemed to be enjoyed by audiences, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Stranger things have certainly happened.
3
‘Smurfs’
Two Smurfs looking surprised standing outside in the real worldImage via Paramount Pictures
It’s very likely that you missed the latest iteration of the beloved Belgian comic series. And to be fair, you might be better off for it. Smurfs, directed by Chris Miller, was meant to reboot the film series, but after a trio of films in the 2010s, was it necessary? The live-action animated adventure follows Smurfette (Rihanna) as she leads the charge to rescue Papa Smurf (John Goodman) after being kidnapped by the evil wizard siblings Razamel and Gargamel (JP Karliak). Sent on a wild world tour that leads them through Paris and Australia, the Smurfs must find new allies and discover their destiny if they hope to save the universe. A new spin on classic IP, Smurfs was lifeless.
Let’s be honest, the hype surrounding this film was Rihanna and the prospect of new music, neither of which delivered. Smurfs made us long for the time when Katy Perry was Smurfette. And that’s saying something. Unfortunately, the new film felt uninspired and uninteresting. With the vocal lead almost phoning in her performance, it forced the rest of the voice ensemble, which was fillled with actual funny people, to pick up the slack. Adults certainly may have enjoyed hearing the likes of James Corden, Nick Offerman, Dan Levy, Amy Sedaris, and Natasha Lyonne during the journey, but it meant suffering through the kid-centric film. It’s sad to think that the reboot may have been DOA from the get-go.
4
‘Snow White’
Rachel Zegler as Snow White in the Disney live-action remake of Snow White smiling and reaching out her hand.Image via Disney
In a world filled with Snow White‘s, be a Lilo & Stitch. The Walt Disney Company has had a recent affinity for bringing their greatest stories back to life with live-action adaptations. Likely to help reach a new generation of viewers, the experiment has been filled with a wide-ranging result. Some have been hits, while others have been sever misses. Just look at 2025 when the company brought two animated classics to the big screen again. Perhaps the endless controversy surrounding the film impaired the impressions Snow White gave, but the live-action adaptation almost gave pause for continuing the live-action experiment. Retelling the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the film follows Snow White (Rachel Zegler), a princess who escapes the assassination by her stepmother, the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot), and joins a merry band of seven dwarfs and Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) a rogue bandit, in hopes of reclaiming the kingdom. An utter box office bomb, Snow White sadly lacked the Disney magic that made its contemporaries sing.
With Tangled the next in the works, hopefully the House of Mouse had learned some things from Snow White’s failure. It’s not necessarily about reinventing the wheel, it’s about taken care of the story from casting to imagery. That said, the only controversial thing we can imagine happening right now is not casting Cher as Mother Gothel. Just saying!
5
‘War of the Worlds’
Ice Cube looks shocked with his mouth open in 2025’s War of the WorldsImage via Universal Pictures
After Steven Spielberg had a pretty solid adaptation of War of the Worlds, it came across as an odd decision to, 20 years later, make another adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic. Nevertheless, the Rich Lee directed film dropped and became almost universally panned. Essentially mocked for the plethora of product placement, this new version of the story puts Ice Cube in the center of the action as Homeland Security analyst, Will Radford. Using a massive surveillance system to monitor everyone, including his kids, meteors unleash data-hungry aliens that threaten humanity, forcing him to confront government secrets and his own spying to save his family and the world, as the aliens focusing on harvesting data from global servers. A very modern and sardonic interpretation of the novel, War of the Worlds is just a flat out disaster of a screenlife film.
From the abysmal performances to the bizarrely timed drone delivery, the ambitious project truly wanted to be something it never could have been. To the film’s credit, attempting to tell an alien invasion story through a modern technological lens sounded brilliant, but forcing Ice Cube to lead the film was a hefty burden. Is there a universe in which the film could have been better received had it not been called War of the Worlds? Perhaps. Not having to be bogged down by a source material could have been freeing. But, at the end of the day, War of the Worlds was a glorified advertisement that was difficult to sit through. Let’s hope this isn’t an indicator of our future.
6
‘Wolf Man’
Christopher Abbott as Blake holding his scarred up arm in Wolf Man.Image via Universal Pictures
After the highly successful adaptation of The Invisible Man, Leigh Whannell returned with another entry into the potential Universal monsters revolution. Then the poorly conceived Wolf Man arrived and flopped. The new version of the film followed Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott), a family man with a traumatic past, who learns that he has inherited his father’s cabin after he was pronounced dead. Upon heading up the woods, Blake seeks to protect his wife and daughter, Charlotte (Julia Garner) and Ginger (Matilda Firth), from a werewolf, only to become infected and slowly transform into the creature. Exploring the psychological downfall of isolation, the film took so many liberties that Wolf Man stood out of the pack for all the wrong reasons.
Even though the trio of actors navigated the script as best as possible, the major cinematic and production decisions caused the film to become its own monster. The transformation into the werewolf was bizarre in its own right. Abbott played the part as instructed, but the creation was simply a metaphor for the isolation felt during quarantine during COVID-19. Knowing that intention, it minimized the werewolf horror and instead made us relive our own past trauma, fearful of a life of confinement. Whannell has done better, and, with a different intent, Wolf Man could have been better.
Release Date
January 15, 2025
Runtime
103 minutes