5 Years Ago, Robert Downey Jr.'s Big Post-Iron Man Movie Was A Box Office Disaster

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

"At that point I was bulletproof. I was the guru of all genre movies." Those are the words of Robert Downey Jr. in 2023 as "Oppenheimer" was making its way to theaters. That film went on to win "Best Picture" and made nearly $1 billion worldwide. It also won RDJ an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The point in time he was talking about? Around 2017 when he was cast in a film called "The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle," later shortened to just "Dolittle." 

The resounding success of "Oppenheimer" cemented Downey as an unquestioned A-lister, even outside of the confines of "Iron Man" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His turn as Tony Stark for more than a decade revived his career beyond even wildest expectations. It made him a global superstar rivaled only by the likes of Tom Cruise. However, the actor was not bulletproof, as evidenced by the disaster that was "Dolittle," the biggest flop of Downey's wild career. It's the movie that brought a star back down to Earth, for better or worse.

In this week's Tales from the Box Office, we're looking back at "Dolittle" in honor of its fifth anniversary. We'll go over how the film came to be, how over-confidence seemed to derail the production, what happened when the movie hit theaters, what happened in the aftermath of its release, and what lessons we can learn from it several years removed. Let's dig in, shall we?

The film is based on the classic novel "Doctor Dolittle" by Hugh Lofting. It's far from the first time Hollywood tried to turn the story of a man who can talk to animals into a movie. There was the 1967 version starring Rex Harrison as the title character, as well as the 1998 version starring Eddie Murphy. The difference this time, aside from having the biggest star in the world attached, was that Universal Pictures was going to turn Lofting's tale into a grand historical epic, rather than a more straightforward take on the material.

"Dolittle" takes place in 19th-century England and centers on Dr. John Dolittle who is living in solitude in his manor, with only the exotic animals that he speaks to keeping him company. When young Queen Victoria falls ill, the eccentric doctor and his animal friends set off on an epic adventure to a mysterious island in search of the cure.

Some context is worth taking into account here. As Downey suggested, he was bulletproof heading into the 2020s. When "Iron Man" hit theaters in 2008, it became a wildly unlikely smash hit. Prior to that, the actor was borderline unemployable due to troubles earlier in his career and personal life. That movie changed everything though, kicking off the Marvel Cinematic Universe and an epic decade-long run of hit after hit for RDJ.

That all culminated in 2019 with "Avengers: Endgame," which became the biggest movie of all time, albeit briefly, making nearly $2.8 billion at the global box office. That also served (for a time) as Downey's departure from the MCU, with all eyes on what the actor was going to do next now that Iron Man was behind him. That being the case, "Dolittle" had a great deal of pressure on it almost by default. Downey's MCU films grossed more than $12 billion. Expectations were sky high.

Universal Pictures went all out for the film, giving it a massive $175 million budget. $20 million of that went to Downey's salary alone. Stephen Gaghan ("Syriana," "Gold") was tapped as a somewhat unlikely choice to helm the blockbuster.

Because of the high-profile nature of the project, the studio was able to secure an insane ensemble including Tom Holland ("Spider-Man"), Antonio Banderas ("The Mask of Zorro"), Emma Thompson ("Saving Mr. Banks"), Rami Malek ("Bohemian Rhapsody"), John Cena ("Bumblebee"), and Octavia Spencer ("Hidden Figures") among others. They even got the legendary Danny Elfman ("Batman," "Spider-Man") to do the score. What could go wrong? A lot, apparently.

The initial cut of "Dolittle" worried Universal execs, which led to expensive rewrites and reshoots. More animals and more laughs were added in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience, with Chris McKay ("The Lego Batman Movie") and Jonathan Liebesman ("Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles") called in to assist Gaghan in getting the film in shape. As we'll get into, much of what was added during this time is what resulted in the movie being panned by critics.

One rather infamous "Dolittle" scene involving a flatulent dragon was actually Downey's suggestion. This came about in the third act and was emblematic of what the film had turned into. To that end, reflecting upon the failure in a 2023 interview, RDJ referred to "Dolittle" as one of the most important films he ever made, but for all of the wrong reasons:

"The two most important films I've done in the last 25 years are 'The Shaggy Dog,' because that was the film that got Disney saying they would insure me. Then the second most important film was 'Dolittle,' because 'Dolittle' was a two-and-a-half-year wound of squandered opportunity."

The actor's harsh words proved to be founded. "Dolittle" had all of the makings of a disaster behind the scenes, from expensive reshoots/rewrites to ever-shifting release dates. There is also a bit of a stigma that exists, suggesting January is a "dump month" for Hollywood, with mostly bad or small potatoes movies releasing. Fair or not, it didn't suggest a lot of confidence that Universal opted to go with a January release, rather than put Robert Downey Jr.'s star-studded affair in summer.

Universal, sadly, had no reason to be confident. The movie was a mess and critics tore it to shreds. "Dolittle" was called an "ill-conceived voyage" in /Film's 4 out of 10 review. Critics largely agreed with that assessment, which led to a lot of negative buzz heading into opening weekend. Regardless, the film hit theaters on January 17, 2020, opening directly against the long-awaited "Bad Boys for Life." It proved to be a disastrous scenario.

"Bad Boys for Life" topped the charts with $62.5 million, eventually becoming the biggest Hollywood hit of the year, with $426.5 million worldwide. "Dolittle," on the other hand, finished at number three with just $21.8 million, placing behind the Oscar-favorite "1917" ($21.9 million), which was in its fourth weekend of release. It also didn't help matters that the likes of "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," "Little Women," and "Knives Out," among others, were also in the middle of very strong runs in theaters. It was a trainwreck.

Just about the only positive for Universal is that the film held decently the following weekend, dropping just 44%. But when your $200 million over-budget blockbuster opens so far below expectations, it hardly matters. In the end, "Dolittle" wrapped up its run with a horrendous $77 million domestically to go with $174.3 million internationally for a grand total of $251.4 million worldwide. The studio's take home cut would hardly be enough to cover marketing costs, let alone the budget.

One of the biggest issues for Universal (as it was for the world) was the pandemic, which shut all of Hollywood down in March of 2020. Unfortunately, the studio was forced to delay the rest of its slate for months/years, with an uncertain future before them. "Dolittle" was the biggest film the studio released that year and it lost them a fortune. Estimates vary wildly but given that theaters keep around half of all money generated at the box office, the losses were in the tens of millions, if not higher.

In the months that followed, when theaters around the world shut their doors for an uncertain amount of time, Universal was the first studio to release a new movie at home, "Trolls World Tour," embracing the Premium VOD model, charging $20 for a rental. To this day, Universal remains one of the biggest champions of PVOD, despite the fact that it has arguably cut into theatrical revenues. It might not be a stretch to say that this flop elevated the sense of urgency at the company when it came to generating revenue outside of theaters.

If nothing else, it was a colossal failure even if the world hadn't shut down mere weeks later. For Downey, it was a black mark on his otherwise impeccable track record. Let's not forget that the actor also turned "Sherlock Holmes" into a blockbuster theatrical franchise in the 2010s. This failure reshaped the actor's thinking about how he wanted to approach his post-Marvel career.

This flop may have, in some way, motivated his decision to return to the MCU as Doctor Doom — not Tony Stark — in "Avengers: Doomsday." Safety doesn't sound so bad after the farting dragon fiasco. Get your Oscar, then go get your crowd-pleasing payday, is another way to look at it.

"After that point — what's that phrase? Never let a good crisis go to waste?" Downey said reflecting on "Dolittle" in a 2023 profile. "We had this reset of priorities and made some changes in who our closest business advisers were."

This film is an important lesson in the dangers of overconfidence. At every stage, it just feels like all involved thought this was going to work. RDJ and his team seemed to feel that going for another big franchise was the way to go after retiring as Iron Man. Yet, when the venture is not coming from a creative place, it is fighting an even steeper uphill battle. In this case, Downey and everyone else involved tumbled down the mountain. The experience will surely be part of the calculus in any decision he makes from here on out.

For Universal — and Hollywood in general — this should be a cautionary tale in the dangers of assuming IP for the sake of IP is meaningful. Just because something already exists doesn't mean it's going to matter to the masses. "Blade Runner 2049" is another great example of this commercially, even if that film is widely considered a masterpiece creatively.

The other big red flag here is the amount of money that was thrown at the many problems that plagued "Dolittle." $175 million is an astronomical amount of money for this kind of film in the first place. Forget the pricey reshoots and rewrites. More importantly, those reshoots and rewrites weren't aiming for the best creative decision. They were going for the lowest common denominator, assuming that animals and cheap humor would sell tickets. In short? Throwing money at creative problems is almost never the answer. That's how we get dragon farts.