A box-office bomb[a] is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the combined production budget, marketing, and distribution costs exceed the revenue after release has technically "bombed", the term is more frequently used for major studio releases that were highly anticipated, extensively marketed, and expensive to produce, but nevertheless failed commercially.[1][2] Originally, a "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.[3]
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