Studios seem to think that big budget means big profit but if the movie doesn’t have a good story line, good direction or even the right actors in the right roles, no amount of money thrown at it during production is going to make someone go and see it.

Last year there were several high profile movie flops that cost studios some major money. Looking at box office gross alone doesn’t tell you if the movie was successful or not. What the numbers don’t tell you is that the studios have to split the grosses with movie theater owners and the production budget doesn’t take into account the millions of dollars spent to promote the film. So even if the movie seemed to break even with the production budget, it would still be considered a flop as it would have to gross a minimum of twice the production cost in order to be considered breaking even.

Of the 15 biggest movie flops of last year, one third were sci-fi/fantasy films. Here’s a list of the top 5 sci-fi/fantasy movies that bombed in 2011 in order of gross receipts (click the title for our review of each movie).

5 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movie Flops Of 2011

5. Green Lantern (Warner Bros.)

Budget: $200 million Worldwide Gross: $219.9 million

Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively

4. Cowboys & Aliens (Dreamworks/Universal)

Budget: $163 million Worldwide Gross: $178.8 million

Stars: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford

3. Sucker Punch (Warner Bros.)

Budget: $82 million Worldwide Gross: $89.9 million

Stars: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens

2. The Thing (Universal)

Budget: $38 million Worldwide Gross: $27.4 million

Stars: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton

1. Conan the Barbarian (Lionsgate)

Budget: $90 million Worldwide Gross: $48.8 million

Stars: Jason Momoa, Rose McGowan

As you can see, big budget films (such as Green Lantern and Cowboys & Aliens) have to outperform if they are to be considered a big blockbuster hit. This does concern me with the amount of big budgeted movies that are set to be released this year such as ‘The Avengers’ ($150 million), ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ ($250 million), ‘Prometheus’ (rumored to be estimated around $200 million) and ‘The Hobbit’ (estimated to be around $250 million).

A lot of hype has already started to get the audiences pumped up for their release, but will the end product be able to deliver or will they, too, be considered a flop? I guess we’ll see this time next year!