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We’re a little bit over the halfway mark of the year, so it’s time to check in on all the streaming flops, bombs and misses from the first half of the year.
Today, we’re looking at film flops!
But first, two big changes to this article.
For the first time in a while, I’m not arranging the streaming flops, bombs and misses by streamer…there just weren’t enough films! Some streamers had zero scripted straight-to-streaming misses (Paramount+), or just one (Peacock, HBO Max), or just a handful (Apple TV), so I didn’t feel like covering each streamer separately. (This is not the case with TV shows…every streamer has at least one, if not thirteen, scripted streaming misses.)
Writing the article this way allows me to cover more trends and highlight more themes in the first half of the year.
The biggest update/change, though, is that I’m adding in theatrical films to the main lists. If a theatrically-released film flopped on streaming, I’ll mention it. I will note that, unlike straight-to-streaming films, I don’t collect every film that went to theaters, because that would be impossible. Hundreds and hundreds of films come out every year. I collect and follow the most notable films, mainly ones that were widely released, and even then, I can’t track all of them.
If you want to read the full methodology for how I assemble this list, I’ll include it in the next article on TV shows (or you can read my past flops recaps). In short, this list is…
…scripted and unscripted films and specials,
…from the major streamers,
…in the US (using US-only ratings),
…excluding true crime (There are just too many! and they’re cheap…), short films (anything shorter than thirty minutes), “making of” specials, and foreign-language films,
…that got low ratings,
…from Jan-2026 to the end of June-2026.
For the most part, I’m pretty strict about holding everyone to the same standard. If a scripted film got less than 10 million hours on streaming, that’s a miss. If an unscripted documentary got less than 5 million hours, that’s also a miss.1 There’s a tiny bit of wiggle room—mainly for some smaller streamers and films—but not much. Honestly, a bunch of Netflix films underperformed in 2026, but I didn’t include them here since they got over 10 million hours on the viewership charts. That said…I will discuss them in an upcoming article.
On to the article itself. I’ve arranged the films by honorable mentions, misses, flops, bombs and “Bomb of the Year” candidates. As for the list itself, this isn’t a scientific ranking, more a rough estimate of how costly or notable the flop was. By the end, all of the “Bomb of the Year” candidates are all about the same.
(Also, as a data visualization guy, I love to make charts and graphs showing how films perform. That’s always tough with these articles, though, because often we don’t have any data! These films often just miss the charts entirely, so it’s impossible to make compelling images with no data.)
Honorable Mentions
Here are the honorable mentions for each streamer, which is mostly unscripted fare. For the most part, I moved all of the documentaries to this section.
HBO Max: None
Apple TV: None
Paramount+: The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs & Who Has Control
Peacock: The Heartbreak Kid: Becoming Shawn Michaels
See what I mean about not very many straight-to-streaming films that flopped? Some streamers didn’t release more than one or two straight-to-streaming films, period. Apple TV only had two scripted films (see below), Paramount+ had one unscripted film, and Peacock had one scripted (see below) and one unscripted miss. Props to them!
As I mentioned last time, HBO mostly sends its docs and standup specials to HBO first, which I don’t track since most streaming analytics companies don’t track these titles unless they’re very, very popular. So technically, HBO does have more misses than this, plus I highlighted one HBO-first scripted film below.
Hulu: Hoops, Hopes & Dreams, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Runway Show, Mouth of the Wolf: Amanda Knox Returns to Italy
As I noted in the introduction, I don’t include true crime docs in these looks—there’s just too many!—but based on the talent attached to Mouth of the Wolf, Amanda Knox, this one did feel notable enough to mention.
Disney: Bluey’s Big Play – The Stage Show, Disneyland Handcrafted, Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special
I doubt Bluey’s Big Play cost all that much to film and I’m sure it has replay value, but it didn’t chart. I included the Hannah Montana special as an honorable mention because it didn’t make the viewership charts in the US, but Disney+ PR put out a good global datecdote about it.
Prime Video: Groundswell, Jerry West: The Logo, Meal Ticket, Eli Manning Presents: The Undercovers – Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson vs. The Double, Rory McIlroy: The Masters Wait
Aside from one title, all of these are sports docs. The sports-tainment space feels a bit crowded and overrated; the question is how many of these specials were produced by the athletes or leagues themselves.
Netflix: Beyond the Game: Samurai 2026 World Baseball Classic, BTS: The Return, Chris & Martina: The Final Set, Countdown: Rousey vs. Carano, Famous Last Words: Eric Dane, Kylie: Tension Tour Live, Lainey Wilson: Keepin’ Country Cool, Louis Theroux: Inside The Manosphere, Matter of Time, Miracle: The Boys of ’80, Noah Kahan: Out of Body, Queen of Chess, The Plastic Detox, Untold film series, Untold UK film series.
Netflix releases the most titles, hence why they have the most honorable mentions. Most of these honorable mentions are sports docs (especially one-offs in the Untold series), biopic docs, or music specials. (Again, the sports doc space genre is really overrated.)
I will say, though it didn’t chart, I really like the Famous Last Words concept.
Misses
Okay, let’s get to the misses! We start with the lowest tier: low cost films or high-cost documentaries and specials.
#74-76: Low to Ultra-low Budget Horror Films
We’re just getting started with this deep dive into film flops, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out the rest of the film flops so far in 2026…
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