Talk:Box-office bomb: Difference between revisions

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*:::::Note that the nomination includes the request to rename [[List of biggest box-office bombs]], a title which fits the description I’ve made above. When a film loses money it can be called a failure, when it loses a great deal of money, ruins careers, or fails not only to live up to expectations but gains an early reputation of containing little worth expecting, that’s where the ‘bomb’ descriptor kicks in. ‘Failure’ doesn’t carry the same connotation, and should remain an alternate name. [[User:Randy Kryn|Randy Kryn]] ([[User talk:Randy Kryn|talk]]) 12:37, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

*:::::Note that the nomination includes the request to rename [[List of biggest box-office bombs]], a title which fits the description I’ve made above. When a film loses money it can be called a failure, when it loses a great deal of money, ruins careers, or fails not only to live up to expectations but gains an early reputation of containing little worth expecting, that’s where the ‘bomb’ descriptor kicks in. ‘Failure’ doesn’t carry the same connotation, and should remain an alternate name. [[User:Randy Kryn|Randy Kryn]] ([[User talk:Randy Kryn|talk]]) 12:37, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

*::::::Not every box-office failure is a box-office bomb, but every box-office bomb is a box-office failure. “Failure” may not carry the same connotation, but that list article is titled “”’List of biggest box-office bombs”'”, not “”’List of box-office bombs”'”. The inclusion of “biggest” already signals the general scale without further requiring a non-neutral slang term. Biggest failures = “bombs”. And again, there is no evidence to suggest “bomb” is even more common than “flop” or “disappointment”. So there is no valid reason for the list to exist at “bombs” over [[List of biggest box-office flops]] or [[List of biggest box-office disappointments]]. But these are not as neutral [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=box-office+bombs%2Cbox-office+failures%2Cbox-office+flops%2Cbox-office+disappointments&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 nor as common as “failures”]. As I stated above, the article where it is now is basically the opposite of “[[Box-office smash]]”, which we would never title an article here. Despite the fact that “box-office smash” it is an EXTREMELY COMMON name (in reliable sources, check for yourself) for when a film earns a great deal of money, far more common than “bomb”, “disappointment” and “flop”, [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=box-office+bomb%2Cbox-office+failure%2Cbox-office+flop%2Cbox-office+disappointment%2Cbox-office+smash&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 see Ngram]. [[User:Οἶδα|Οἶδα]] ([[User talk:Οἶδα|talk]]) 18:39, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

*::::::Not every box-office failure is a box-office bomb, but every box-office bomb is a box-office failure. “Failure” may not carry the same connotation, but that list article is titled “”’List of biggest box-office bombs”'”, not “”’List of box-office bombs”'”. The inclusion of “biggest” already signals the general scale without further requiring a non-neutral slang term. Biggest failures = “bombs”. And again, there is no evidence to suggest “bomb” is even more common than “flop” or “disappointment”. So there is no valid reason for the list to exist at “bombs” over [[List of biggest box-office flops]] or [[List of biggest box-office disappointments]]. But these are not as neutral [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=box-office+bombs%2Cbox-office+failures%2Cbox-office+flops%2Cbox-office+disappointments&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 nor as common as “failures”]. As I stated above, the article where it is now is basically the opposite of “[[Box-office smash]]”, which we would never title an article here. Despite the fact that “box-office smash” it is an EXTREMELY COMMON name (in reliable sources, check for yourself) for when a film earns a great deal of money, far more common than “bomb”, “disappointment” and “flop”, [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=box-office+bomb%2Cbox-office+failure%2Cbox-office+flop%2Cbox-office+disappointment%2Cbox-office+smash&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 see Ngram]. [[User:Οἶδα|Οἶδα]] ([[User talk:Οἶδα|talk]]) 18:39, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

*::::Who defines at what point a film crosses over from being a “disappointment” to a “flop” to a “bomb”? You? Me? Coverage in reliable sources, the entire basis of Wikipedia, certainly has not done that. This is a recipe for a bad article. As I wrote previously, there is certainly a colloquial difference between being a “flop” and a “bomb”, but, being colloquial, these have no proper definition because they are inconsistently defined. So indeed, “bomb” is certainly not synonymous with “failure”, but neither is “flop” synonymous with “bomb”, nor “disappointment” with “flop”. Different publications use these labels interchangeably, presumably according to the respective writer’s own informal thresholds, which makes any attempt to define and apply them here a a matter of original research. I would note that [[List of biggest box-office bombs]] pertains specifically to the “biggest” box-office failures, not to all “bombs”, because that would be an impossible, biased task. Reliable sources do not apply the term consistently enough to support using it as any kind of objective classification. There is no good reason for us to dip our toes into this lexical morass by forcing any of these slang terms as the article title here and having the entire article be about the precise (yet inherently imprecise) scale of a given colloquial term. In fact, the article here doesn’t even try to limit itself to “bomb”, or any other single slang term. [[User:Οἶδα|Οἶδα]] ([[User talk:Οἶδα|talk]]) 18:11, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

*::::Who defines at what point a film crosses over from being a “disappointment” to a “flop” to a “bomb”? You? Me? Coverage in reliable sources, the entire basis of Wikipedia, certainly has not done that. This is a recipe for a bad article. As I wrote previously, there is certainly a colloquial difference between being a “flop” and a “bomb”, but, being colloquial, these have no proper definition because they are inconsistently defined. So indeed, “bomb” is certainly not synonymous with “failure”, but neither is “flop” synonymous with “bomb”, nor “disappointment” with “flop”. Different publications use these labels interchangeably, presumably according to the respective writer’s own informal thresholds, which makes any attempt to define and apply them here a matter of original research. I would note that [[List of biggest box-office bombs]] pertains specifically to the “biggest” box-office failures, not to all “bombs”, because that would be an impossible, biased task. Reliable sources do not apply the term consistently enough to support using it as any kind of objective classification. There is no good reason for us to dip our toes into this lexical morass by forcing any of these slang terms as the article title here and having the entire article be about the precise (yet inherently imprecise) scale of a given colloquial term. In fact, the article here doesn’t even try to limit itself to “bomb”, or any other single slang term. [[User:Οἶδα|Οἶδα]] ([[User talk:Οἶδα|talk]]) 18:11, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

– The term “box-office bomb” is a non-neutral colloquialism, the meaning of which is not obvious to those not in the know about the film business and also has changed over time, and may yet change again. Although some may argue that “bomb” is the common name, WP:POVTITLE specifically states that common names may be avoided if they are “Colloquialisms where far more encyclopedic alternatives are obvious”. “Box-office failure” is concise, neutral, and clear, avoiding any potential issues with POV or ambiguity.

Additionally, due to the increasingly common occurrence of blockbuster films that boast huge production budgets yet fail to make them back during their theatrical run despite earning significantly large sums, there are an increasing number of films that are considered box-office disappointments but are not described as “bombs” in the media, one such example being Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. Others, such as The Matrix Resurrections, do not turn a profit in their theatrical run, but do find an audience on streaming platforms. The lede sections of these articles neutrally describe the specific way in which they are considered to have “failed” by sources; “underperformed”, “disappointment”, etc., rather than “bomb”.

The article title should therefore be changed so as to recognize that a film can fail financially at the box office, but not necessarily be considered a “bomb” as such. Box-office bomb should obviously remain a redirect, and the true box office bombs (the likes of Morbius, Megalopolis, and Joker: Folie à Deux) can still be described as bombs if the sources warrant it. silviaASH (inquire within) 01:32, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural note I have added the additional proposal to rename List of biggest box-office bombs to List of biggest box-office failures for the sake of maintaining consistency in the titles of these two related articles, should this article be moved. silviaASH (inquire within) 11:58, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose the proposed title, open to a rename. Box-office “bombs” and “failures” are not synonymous. The scale of failure is also intrinsic to the definition of a bomb, which the proposed term doesn’t quite capture. I am open to a renaming, but as per the recent move discussion at Talk:List_of_biggest_box-office_bombs#Requested_move_12_December_2025, the bigger problem is actually the “box-office” part. Films are not just dependent on box-office, they also get revenue from ancillary markets which also help determine whether a film is a flop, so “box-office” is something of a misnomer in this context. Another problem with both the titles is that the scope is not clear i.e. the article is specifically about films, but that is not clear from the title alone. I agree with the nominator that the existing title is problematic, but I don’t think the proposed name is an improvement. The nominator argues that colloquialisms should be avoided when more encyclopedic alternatives are obvious, but I don’t think there is an encyclopedic alternative that is obvious. That doesn’t mean to say there isn’t an encyclopedic alternative, but the question requires a bit more thought. It would be great if we could find a sensible way forward for this article and the list. Betty Logan (talk) 01:53, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    A potential alternative could be Commercial failures in film (and List of commercial failures in film), which has some precedent in List of commercial failures in video and arcade games. As for the concern regarding capturing the scale of failure, I did address this in the move request; I feel that the article should describe box-office failure in general regardless of scale rather than focusing on “catastrophic” losses. What makes a film a “box-office bomb” is often the political dimension of the studio or distributor’s public embarrassment in the industry media (something that simply isn’t present in the Dead Reckoning example cited above) in addition to the pure financial losses, and that’s a subjective matter that can only be properly captured by evaluating what the sources say. silviaASH (inquire within) 02:29, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Support your proposed alternative (coincidentally I made the same suggestion last RM) ThePoggingEditor (talk) 20:54, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Note: WikiProject Business and WikiProject Film have been notified of this discussion. silviaASH (inquire within) 03:10, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support “Box-office failure” seems to be the common name, per Ngrams. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 05:25, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Different concepts. The proposed rename would alter the scope of the article. While editors are free to do that, it should be done explicitly rather than as a side-effect of a rename. Betty Logan (talk) 23:37, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I largely agree with the above discussion and, as such, I too am not sure what the absolute perfect title for this article should be. I have found “flop” to be the more common colloquialism today, making “bomb” even less appropriate to remain in the title here. Though there is certainly a colloquial difference between being a “flop” and a “bomb”, but, being colloquial, these have no proper definition. I would agree that “Box-office failure” does not entirely fix the problem but I do believe it is an improvement as it is a more neutral and common name. I would also agree with silviaASH that these colloquialisms should be subtopics of an article about box-office failure (and whatever that entails according to what the sources tell us) instead of being the main topic here. As such, they need not be synonymous. I understand that “films are not just dependent on box-office” and as such using “box-office” in the title can be viewed as imprecise if we are to include all possible revenue sources, but I’m not finding the primary coverage about the financial performance of films in English reliable sources to be precise in that manner, currently or historically. And I’m not convinced the article should even try to account for those separate revenue numbers, not only because it is not very reflective of the regular coverage that discusses flops, bombs, duds, i.e. failures, but because it is rather difficult to do so, which makes it essentially impossible for us to fairly determine some reliable total number based on spotty, incomplete data and then present it as accurate here on Wikipedia. Read the entire first paragraph at List of highest-grossing films, which has specifically excluded non box-office earnings for these reasons. And I’m not convinced that the metonym “box-office” is unclear to readers that it is about theatrical film earnings because, again, this is rather obviously reflected in the coverage about film revenue that has been published in reliable sources on a weekly basis for many decades now. It is the common name for theatrical film earnings. No other name is as common and recognizable to readers. That being said, “box office” can still refer to other ticketed earnings, such as that of plays. If the focus is to correct for that, then I too cannot see “an encyclopedic alternative that is obvious”. But I believe we are venturing to correct for “bomb” at this juncture, and “failure” is indeed more neutral while still being a common name as “Box-office failure” (the natural opposite of the common “box-office success”), over the non-neutral colloquials “Box office bomb”, “Box-office flop”, “Box-office dud”, “Box-office disappointment” etc. The article where it is now is basically the opposite of “Box-office smash”, which we would never title an article here. Οἶδα (talk) 09:07, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: This article is not about films that generally underperform at the box office or could otherwise be deemed a commercial failure, it is specifically about the phrase “Box office bomb” and how it has been historically used. While it is a loaded term that should not be applied to films without adequate sourcing, it is still a noteworthy term that should be explained to readers. This move would only make sense if the article was rewritten to be about general box office failures with mention of various terms that are used. But as is I do not support the move. – adamstom97 (talk) 09:26, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    If it is indeed about the phrase and its historical definitions, then that should be corrected, given that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. However, I would very much disagree with this assessment of the current state of the article. At present, only the lede concerns the definition of “box-office bomb”, and it puts undue weight on defining the term, because the bulk of the article concerns what causes a box-office failure and how a studio’s business may be impacted by that failure. The lede should ideally be rewritten to reflect the actual content of the article, but this is an issue beyond the scope of this move request that does not require consensus beforehand. silviaASH (inquire within) 10:39, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    (I have made a BOLD effort to improve the lede to resolve this issue.) silviaASH (inquire within) 10:48, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the reasons in the 2022 snow closed RM. Please ping its participants, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:36, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Which 2022 RM was this? I see the 2025 RM for the list article linked earlier, but I don’t know of any 2022 RM, and this talk page doesn’t list any past RMs. silviaASH (inquire within) 11:41, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    In any case, that 2025 move proposal was different, and as far as I can see most of the opposes there had to do with WP:CONCISE. I do not see that as relevant here; my proposed title is equally as concise as the existing one, and changing the list article to List of biggest box-office failures would be equally as concise as its extant title. Had I voted in that RM, I probably would have opposed moving the article to Masem’s proposed title under CONCISE, and instead proposed “List of biggest box-office failures” as an alternative for the reasons already outlined here.
    Pinging participants of the related 2025 RM for the list article; @Masem, @ThePoggingEditor, @Herostratus, @GoneIn60, @Zacwill, @Thewolfchild, @Bluesatellite, and @Jessintime. silviaASH (inquire within) 11:48, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Here’s the 2022 snow/withdrawn RM: Talk:Box-office bomb/Archive 1#Requested move 20 August 2022. It should be added to the top of this talk page too. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:56, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you for the link. In looking at that 2022 RM, my primary observations there are that the nomination argument, a simple statement of WP:GOOGLEHITS, is not particularly compelling IMHO. I would not have voted in favor based on that statement. I feel that the outcome there should not bias this RM given that my arguments are significantly different (and a few people have voted in favor here already, including Betty Logan, who opposed the 2022 RM, so I do not think this will be a SNOW case as was seen there). Further pings: @Accesscrawl, @Segaton, @InfiniteNexus, and @H. Carver. (Omitted Coolcaesar and MarnetteD as they are both blocked from editing blocked and deceased respectively so there is no point pinging them.) silviaASH (inquire within) 13:22, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    A slight correction. MarnetteD is not blocked, but died. One of our many losses. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:00, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Apologies for that mistake. I’ve corrected my comment. silviaASH (inquire within) 15:04, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I do believe that there is a clear distinction here as well. Films that are demonstrated by sources to lose a lot of money can neutrally and without OR be called “box office failures”, but “box office bomb”, at least to me, imply films that had high expectations by a significant portion of the film-covering media and failed spectulary, in which case they actually “bombed”. But that requires sources to make the distinction for us, and most of the time we’re currently using “box office bomb” it is simply based on looking at the difference between budget and ticket sales and not the expected performance. Masem (t) 12:44, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:AINTBROKE. Feels like we just went though all this, like… 5 minutes ago. The article “Box office bomb” needs to retained as is because that is a specific subject worthy of an article. Should some people feel the need to create synonymous, related articles, redirects, sub-subsections, etc. for “Motion picture ventures and projects that did not realize sufficient monetary returns on investment via any commercial means” (yadda, yadda, yadda) then go right ahead. It doesn’t change the fact that many films are described as “box office bombs” both in media and everyday usage. That brings us to our list article, which is a “List of the biggest box office bombs” – not all box office bombs. And as for “box office”, it is a perfectly acceptable collequialism, and look no further than the main source used on the list article (almost exclusively), that being “Box Office Mojo”. Our list is a popular article that many readers have no problem finding and understanding. So again, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. (And perhaps we should seek a moratorium on these move requests? Three years would be a good start…) – \\’cԼF 14:53, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I don’t see a need for a moratorium. The last move request for the list page was in December, nearly two months ago, and the last one for the main page was in 2022, and I didn’t even know about it because it wasn’t noted at the top of the talk page. It’s not like this is getting an onslaught of new requests from the same people; I was previously uninvolved in any of those debates and just happened to think independently that this RM was warranted. silviaASH (inquire within) 14:59, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOVTITLE. 162 etc. (talk) 17:45, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per WP:COMMONNAME and above supporting arguments. Comparing “box-office flop”, “box-office bomb”, “box-office disappointment”, and “box-office failure” in Ngram shows the latter, “failure”, as the most common with “flop” perhaps the closest behind, though ranking at a distant second. In direct comparison to “bomb”, a simple unscientific Google search shows 523k results for “failure” as opposed to only 215k results for “bomb” (of course, take that somewhat lightly with a grain of salt).Outside of the lead, this article essentially covers financial failure from a general perspective with light doses sprinkled in of what it means for a film to bomb. So the scope of the article is already naturally following suit! Should the rename proceed, we would only have to make a simple adjustment to the article, moving the aspect of bombing into its own section and redirecting “box-office bomb” to that section. Makes total sense to me. Not sure why it wasn’t done years ago. —GoneIn60 (talk) 00:32, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Per WP:NPOVTITLE, titles are allowed to be non-neutral (or, by extension, not entirely accurate) so long as they are commonly recognizable and meet the other WP:CRITERIA. Furthermore, nobody really says “box-office failure”. If you do a quick search for the term, you will only get results for “box-office bomb” or “box-office flop”. I know editors often insist that there is a distinction between “bomb”, “flop”, “disappointment”, etc., and maybe there technically is, but the distinction won’t matter to the average reader. Alternative terms can be discussed and clarified in the lead. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:58, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Nobody really says that? Try telling that to Variety, Vulture, USA Today, and The Independent. These were found in a quick search. The real eye-opener is in what Ngram shows. Surprised (or maybe not) that you didn’t mention that. — GoneIn60 (talk) 05:19, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    That’s a misread. Those articles are not describing the films as a “box-office failure”, but rather describing the films’ box-office performance as a “failure”. You’ll notice all of those sentences say “the box-office failure of …”, which can be reworded as “the failure of the box office [performance] of …”. This is different from saying “the film was a box-office bomb”. If this logic isn’t clicking, try replacing “box-office failure” with “box-office bomb” in those sentences; you’ll find that it doesn’t work. As a result, the ngram results cannot be taken at face value in this case. So, this is just an ordinary descriptive phrase, and the common name for the term for a film that failed at the box office is indeed “box-office bomb”. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:57, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    This doesn’t really make much sense at all. None of these articles use the word “bomb” anywhere. They’re clearly saying the films failed at the box office, but not so catastrophically (in their estimation) as to be considered “bombs”, which perfectly tracks with the logic already laid out that while all “box-office bombs” are considered failures, not all “box-office failures” are considered bombs.
    I don’t think having a separate article on non-bomb failures at Box-office failure would make much sense, since, as outlined, this article is not about the term “bomb” and it should not be, given that, again, WP:NOTDICTIONARY. Having “bomb” as a subtopic of this article makes far more sense than the inverse.
    As an aside, I find it very curious in this discussion that so far both the support and oppose camps are citing largely the same policies for their rationale, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest in squaring these differing interpretations of the policies. What do you make of the clause in WP:POVNAME I cited about how colloquial common names may be avoided if a more neutral alternative is obvious? silviaASH (inquire within) 06:20, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, it’s quite the opposite. The common phrase for a film failing at the box office is simply “box-office failure”. It’s all encompassing of the topic, ranging from underperforming to massive failure. On the extreme end of the spectrum is where you typically see it described as a “box-office bomb”, the massive side, but it can also be used as an attention-grabbing headline like “flop”. Think of these spectrums as subsets of the overall topic, which really needs a broader name. If you actually review the article, you’ll realize it’s covering the broader scope, not just the massive financial failure aspect. — GoneIn60 (talk) 06:20, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    This is the same dilemma faced by 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre and HIV/AIDS, and they ultimately settled on compromises that use both the common-but-inaccurate word and the accurate-but-uncommon word. Unfortunately, we do not have a similar solution here; if we are choosing between a common-but-inaccurate word and an accurate-but-uncommon word, since we can’t use both, then the former wins per WP:NPOVTITLE. Plenty of article titles on Wikipedia are misnomers, e.g. Spanish flu (not actually from Spain), Silk Road (actually multiple roads), planetary nebulae (nothing to do with planets), etc.; synonyms that are more comprehensive, neutral, or accurate for these terms exist, but they are not common. Again, the distinction between “bomb”, “flop”, “failure”, “disappointment”, etc. can be explained in the article, but the title should be the one that has the highest chance of ringing a bell for readers. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:43, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    I think you may be overcomplicating things. The article discusses underperformance as a whole. Nearly two-thirds of the article’s prose (700+ words) doesn’t even relate to bombing in the sense of massive failure. If you recognize that and agree there’s a difference between bombing and underperforming, then it should make sense why it’s more efficient to redirect readers who click box-office bomb to a subsection within the article; it is a subtopic. If that isn’t sinking in, then I’m afraid you’re missing the forest for the trees. — GoneIn60 (talk) 07:39, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    the title should be the one that has the highest chance of ringing a bell for readers
    Except you are wrong. “Box-office bomb” is not more common than “box-office flop”. That undercuts the entire position you’re advancing here. So I’m not sure how rooting around the bin of common-but-inconsistently-used slang terms for describing the financial performance of films (“flop”, “bomb”, “dud”, “disappointment”, “disaster”, “misfire”, “catastrophe”), how any of this is preferable to a neutral name that is simultaneously in common usage. Never mind the fact that it actually captures the full scope of the article without forcing a narrow or sensational framing. Οἶδα (talk) 09:25, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Also
    but they are not common
    Not the situation here. “Box-office failure” is in common usage. Ngram already shows this Do you want me to pull up all published usage in The New York Times next? It exceeds “box-office bomb” by a large margin there. So does “box-office flop”. And “box-office disappointment” exceeds both. In Variety, “flop” and “disappointment” equally exceed “bomb”. Οἶδα (talk) 09:26, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I’m not sure why you are convinced that the article cannot be moved unless it is moved to a grammatical analog of “box-office bomb”. We are not required to mirror the syntax or idiomatic form of an existing title, especially when the article’s scope extends beyond what that term denotes. This is easily addressed by adjusting the lead of the article from “A box-office bomb is” to “Box-office failure is/refers to”. Οἶδα (talk) 08:22, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    nobody really says “box-office failure”
    Ummm…. quick search you say?
    On The Guardian‘s website alone: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126][127] Οἶδα (talk) 07:12, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    The miscommunication here may be that those of us who prefer ‘Box office bomb’ are thinking of the worse-of-the-worse, the major losses and not just the pretty bad “failures”. That’s what the article seems to be about. Lots of films will under-perform or lose a great deal of money while not being majorly anticipated or otherwise favored. These are not the bombs. The difference may be either subtle or obvious, and for many editors the obvious is where the wording ‘box office bomb’ reigns. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:39, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    But the article is about financial underperformance of films in general, and not the term “box-office bomb”. As I already said, it should not be about the term per WP:NOTDICT, and if it was written to be solely about the term and its connotations, I’d be at AfD, arguing for a WP:TNT + soft redirect to wikt:box-office bomb, rather than RM. It’s also not about “the worst” failures, but the causes of box-office failure and its potential impact on studio businesses, so the idea that the article is solely about films that “bombed” really doesn’t seem to hold water either. silviaASH (inquire within) 12:11, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Note that the nomination includes the request to rename List of biggest box-office bombs, a title which fits the description I’ve made above. When a film loses money it can be called a failure, when it loses a great deal of money, ruins careers, or fails not only to live up to expectations but gains an early reputation of containing little worth expecting, that’s where the ‘bomb’ descriptor kicks in. ‘Failure’ doesn’t carry the same connotation, and should remain an alternate name. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:37, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Not every box-office failure is a box-office bomb, but every box-office bomb is a box-office failure. “Failure” may not carry the same connotation, but that list article is titled “List of biggest box-office bombs“, not “List of box-office bombs“. The inclusion of “biggest” already signals the general scale without further requiring a non-neutral slang term. Biggest failures = “bombs”. And again, there is no evidence to suggest “bomb” is even more common than “flop” or “disappointment”. So there is no valid reason for the list to exist at “bombs” over List of biggest box-office flops or List of biggest box-office disappointments. But these are not as neutral nor as common as “failures”. As I stated above, the article where it is now is basically the opposite of “Box-office smash“, which we would never title an article here. Despite the fact that “box-office smash” it is an EXTREMELY COMMON name (in reliable sources, check for yourself) for when a film earns a great deal of money, far more common than “bomb”, “disappointment” and “flop”, see Ngram. Οἶδα (talk) 18:39, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Who defines at what point a film crosses over from being a “disappointment” to a “flop” to a “bomb”? You? Me? Coverage in reliable sources, the entire basis of Wikipedia, certainly has not done that. This is a recipe for a bad article. As I wrote previously, there is certainly a colloquial difference between being a “flop” and a “bomb”, but, being colloquial, these have no proper definition because they are inconsistently defined. So indeed, “bomb” is certainly not synonymous with “failure”, but neither is “flop” synonymous with “bomb”, nor “disappointment” with “flop”. Different publications use these labels interchangeably, presumably according to the respective writer’s own informal thresholds, which makes any attempt to define and apply them here a matter of original research. I would note that List of biggest box-office bombs pertains specifically to the “biggest” box-office failures, not to all “bombs”, because that would be an impossible, biased task. Reliable sources do not apply the term consistently enough to support using it as any kind of objective classification. There is no good reason for us to dip our toes into this lexical morass by forcing any of these slang terms as the article title here and having the entire article be about the precise (yet inherently imprecise) scale of a given colloquial term. In fact, the article here doesn’t even try to limit itself to “bomb”, or any other single slang term. Οἶδα (talk) 18:11, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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