Box-office bomb

A box-office bomb is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Any film for which the combined production budget, marketing, and distribution costs exceed the revenue after release is often considered a commercial failure, but the terms "bomb" or "flop" are most frequently used for major studio releases that were highly anticipated, extensively marketed, and expensive to produce, but nevertheless failed commercially.

A film can fail at the box office for a variety of reasons, including poor marketing or word of mouth, an excessive production budget which proves to be difficult to earn back during the film's initial theatrical run, or simply a lack of public interest. Extenuating circumstances such as release timing or world events (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) have also affected film ticket sales. Some films may recover from box office failures through other revenue sources, such as home media sales.

Originally, the term "box-office bomb" had the opposite meaning, referring instead to a successful film that "exploded" at the box office. The term continued to be used this way in the United Kingdom into the 1970s.