Idk if economics was the right flair but I don’t know how it’s economically feasible for big studios to lose money on a lot of films with huge budgets and to make them so bad.
In: Economics
Because they don’t know in advance that they’re going to be bad.
Every movie is a gamble, especially a big budget one. You’re talking a ton of money, and sometimes thousands of people, working toward a goal that is not guaranteed. And often some of those people (ahem…shareholders) aren’t the most creative or innovative people, or even working in the same interests as one another. And as a result, sometimes the final version of the product is nowhere near what it was supposed to be when it was conceived.
So a lot of studios take the path of least resistance to ensure that their films make the most money possible — hiring very famous faces, using the same (or already known) IP, making simple, easy to understand stories that will translate the world over and be offensive to the least amount of people, and oh — a LOT of money spent on marketing, at least if they want the best chance of being successful.
But sometimes, even with all of that working toward making your film money, the public just has no interest in your John Carter or the next plucky young animated hero and it bombs. Because there are indicators of success, but there’s no guarantee of it.
But to answer the other part of your question, for every John Carter there’s a Blair Witch Project, and studios usually find their balance / make their money back somewhere (including other forms of revenue, like merchandising).
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