11 movies Netflix spent over $1 billion on that almost nobody likes

Upon its release on March 14, "The Electric State" became a flop with both critics and audiences — it has a 15% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and an average rating of 2.1 stars on Letterboxd.

Unfortunately for Netflix (and its directors, the Russo brothers), this movie cost a whopping $320 million to produce, per Deadline, making it the most expensive Netflix movie of all time.

The film, based on the graphic novel of the same name, takes place in a dystopian version of the '90s, a past in which there's been a world-leveling war between robots and humans. Millie Bobby Brown stars as Michelle, a teenager who teams up with Keats (Chris Pratt), a veteran, to take down the mega-corporation controlling the world.

As The New York Times' Elisabeth Vincentelli wrote, it's "obvious, garish and just plain dumb."

Until "The Electric State," "Red Notice" had been tied for Netflix's most expensive film, with a budget at somewhere near $200 million, reported Variety.

That investment didn't pay off with acclaim. The international spy caper has a 37% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 2.5 average rating on Letterboxd. However, according to the streamer, it's Netflix's most-watched original film, with almost 231 million views.

"Red Notice" stars Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot as a trio on the hunt for a stolen artifact (a bejeweled egg) — Gadot as the thief, Johnson as an Interpol agent, and Reynolds as another thief who's been roped into working with Interpol to save his own skin.

However, there are so many twists, turns, and double-crosses that this film becomes impossible to follow.

"'Red Notice' is limp and dull and does more to showcase the shortcomings of each of its marquee idols than it does to highlight their bankable charisma," wrote Richard Lawson for Vanity Fair.

"Back in Action" was touted as Cameron Diaz's big return to movies after an 11-year break, as well as something of a comeback for Jamie Foxx after having a stroke in 2023.

Unfortunately for them, this movie simply isn't very good, with a 2.4 average rating on Letterboxd and a 29% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes (and a 58% audience score, which is saying something). And unfortunately for Netflix, it cost upward of $200 million to produce, per Forbes.

The story follows married couple Matt (Foxx) and Emily (Diaz), former CIA operatives who are dragged, well, back into action after one of their former enemies spots them in the background of a video of a bar brawl.

"While it might prove that Diaz still possesses that same particular magic, it also shows that she should be far more discerning with how she chooses to share it," wrote The Guardian's Benjamin Lee.

"The Electric State" is the Russo brothers' follow-up to "The Gray Man," a spy thriller starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, and Billy Bob Thornton, that was similarly dinged for being a soulless piece of content — and had a similarly eye-wateringly high budget of $200 million (according to Screen Rant).

"The film exists to set up sequels, to spend money on fancy location shoots, and to look glamorous and exciting; every harder edge has been sanded down to nothing," wrote The Atlantic's David Sims.

Even though it had a middling response from critics (45% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences (average of 2.8 stars on Letterboxd), Courtland Gentry (Gosling) and his band of gray men are set to return in a sequel at some point.

"Heart of Stone" stars Gal Gadot as Stone, an operative for a mysterious organization called Charter who is tasked with protecting a powerful AI known as the Heart. There's so much else going on, but it becomes nonsensical pretty quickly.

This film, which cost around $150 million to produce, earned a 31% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and an average of 2.2 stars on Letterboxd.

Stephanie Zacharek of Time called this film "a 'Mission: Impossible' wannabe that mostly misses."

The first "Rebel Moon" film, "A Child of Fire," has a 22% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, while its sequel, "The Scargiver," fared even worse with a 16%. They have an average of 2 and 1.9 stars on Letterboxd, respectively.

Director Zack Snyder certainly received a blank check for this series, which cannot be adequately explained in a few sentences. At its most basic, it stars Sofia Boutella as a Luke Skywalker-esque figure who turns against her adopted father and is on a quest to save the galaxy.

Screen Rant reported the two films had a combined budget of $166 million — not great for movies that Richard Roeper called "a ponderous slog."

Per IMDb, the budget for the buddy comedy "Me Time" was $80 million. But there's no reason for this movie to cost more than the entire GDP of Tuvalu. It's simply about two estranged best friends reconnecting.

At 7% on Rotten Tomatoes and an average of 2 stars on Letterboxd, this is one of the most-hated films on this list. TheWrap's William Bibbiani summed it up nicely when he wrote that it "takes all the 'fun' out of 'perfunctory.'"

Jennifer Lopez has starred in a few streaming films, but her 2024 offering "Atlas" is the most disliked by critics and audiences. It reportedly cost a whopping $100 million to make.

In "Atlas," Lopez plays an astronaut who hates AI, but is forced to work with her ship's AI interface, Smith, to save humanity. Confused? So are we.

The film earned a 19% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with Empire Magazine's Helen O'Hara writing, "Lopez throws everything at this, but even major movie-star charisma can't make up for the recycled story elements, tired exposition and endless psycho-babble." Letterboxd users felt similarly, with the film earning an average of two stars.

"Bright" was one of Netflix's first big original movies, with a Forbes-reported budget of $90 million. That also made it one of Netflix's first big critical bombs, with a score of 26% on Rotten Tomatoes and tons of discourse about the streamer's plans to continue producing original content. Indiewire's David Ehrlich called it "the worst film of 2017."

The film stars Will Smith as an LAPD officer in a world where fantasy creatures like elves and orcs coexist with humans. There is a world where this could've been an interesting movie … but it's not the world we live in. Viewers agreed, with "Bright" earning an average rating of 2.3 stars on Letterboxd.

It all comes full circle, as another of Netflix's big-budget flops also starred Millie Bobby Brown, just like "The Electric State": the 2024 fantasy-action film "Damsel," in which Brown plays a princess who is forced to save herself from a fire-breathing dragon, instead of waiting for a handsome prince.

With a 56% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and an average of 2.5 stars on Letterboxd, "Damsel" isn't the most hated film on this list, but it's certainly not beloved.

"Rather than being any particular person's bright idea for a girlboss fantasy revenge caper, this lousy romp was obviously hatched by an algorithm, and might just as well have been directed by AI," wrote Tim Robey for The Telegraph, who also called it "atrocious."

Perhaps that would sting a little less if the film hadn't cost at least $60 million to make, per Yahoo.