Hollywood Summer Blockbusters Proving to Be Busts

String of expensive movies are underperforming

Hollywood is facing a summer crisis after an unprecedented series of films with budgets of more than $100 million flopped at the box office.

Analysts are predicting that R.I.P.D, starring Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds, will become the fourth such film in as many weeks to underperform.

The costliest failure so far has been The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp, which cost $250 million (£165 million) to make, and had a huge marketing budget. It was savaged by critics as a "bloated, unfunny, sometimes downright bizarre train wreck" amid a "summer of garbage blockbusters."