2010 has been a terrible year for bid-budget movies

[Great Rumbler]

Prince of Persia - Super long, super repetitive
Clash of the Titans - Pointless, long stretches of DULL
Robin Hood - Very well-made, but covers story territory so bland and derivative that it doesn't matter
The Last Airbender - Mind-numblingly boring, completely pedestrian in every way
Sorcerer's Apprentice - Haven't seen it yet, probably won't, supposed to be pretty bad too

The only good one I've seen so far is Inception, which seems to be more of an aberration than anything else.

[Fittisize]

2010 has been a terrible year for bid-budget movies

$335M
$493M
$331M
$318M
$215M

Respectively.

The masses beg to differ!

[A Black Falcon]

Toy Story 3 - very, very good

[Great Rumbler]

$335M
$493M
$331M
$318M
$215M

Respectively.

The masses beg to differ!

Fortunately most of those had budgets of around $200 million, meaning that all of them [except Clash of the Titans] were box office disappointments. Aside from Inception, big-budget movies are way down this year. Given the quality on display, GOOD.

Toy Story 3 - very, very good

It had a similar budget, but I wouldn't really put it with those other movies. They're all big-budget, epic action movies, whereas Toy Story 3 is an animated family comedy. Although, yes, it is very, very good.

[A Black Falcon]

As for other animated ones I saw, Shrek 4 was pretty average (at best) and thus was disappointing, though the last one wasn't as good as the first ones either, while Megamind was solid but not incredible entertainment. It's an entertaining movie, but not one of the genre's great classics or anything like that. Toy Story 3, though, is one of those classics, and deserved its mega smash hit success.

As for the five movies you mention there, the only one I saw was Clash of the Titans, which, yes, was disappointing.

[Great Rumbler]

You should watch How to Train Your Dragon, ABF, that one was pretty good.

[A Black Falcon]

I wasn't expecting much from Megamind but it beat my expectations, so it was worth watching even if it certainly was no competition for something like Toy Story 3. Simple but fun. :) How to train your Dragon's good, though? The trailers looked alright, but I haven't seen it, yeah.

[Dark Jaguar]

Hey if I make a million dollar profit, I win, that's just all there is to it. These guys got a profit of several million. That's not something any human being has any right complaining about.

[Great Rumbler]

Hey if I make a million dollar profit, I win, that's just all there is to it. These guys got a profit of several million. That's not something any human being has any right complaining about.

Except you're working from the basis that these movies made even a million dollars of profit.

For example, Prince of Persia had a $200 million production budget and $75 million advertising budget. At most, that would be a $60 million profit, EXCEPT theater take has to be taken into account. The rule of thumb is 3x production budget, meaning Prince of Persia would have needed to reach $600 million before the profits started coming in.

I wouldn't take that rule of thumb as the absolute truth all the time, but the likelihood that Prince of Persia [and Robin Hood, The Last Airbender, and Sorcerer's Apprentice] made negative profit is pretty high.

And, it's not enough to say "Well, we got a million dollars of profit, so great job everybody!", there's also expectations to take into account. If the studio EXPECTED to make far more than that, they can be hurt by getting far less. As in, the stock market.

Also, these movies are tent-pole movies, designed to cost a lot and make a lot to offset losses from other, smaller movies. These are the movies where the studio makes its profits from and these movies failed to deliver, big time.

Consider this as well: studio expenses aren't just related to movie production, there are a great deal of costs outside that which are ultimately taken into account in the grand total at the end of the year, a couple movies with a profit of $1 million might not be enough to offset those expenses.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Scott Pilgrim was pretty good. The Expendables sucked, but it wasn't big budget I suppose.

I guess Avatar was the last big-budget movie I saw in the theatres that sucked. Good eye candy, not much else, especially disappointing when you consider that it's a James Cameron movie. I'll give it good acting, but the plot was dull and predictable, which really tanks it.

[Great Rumbler]

Even Avatar is better than most of the big movies this year [excepting Inception], although even Avatar is a "great to watch in theaters, wouldn't watch again" kind of movie. And "dull and predictable" really pegs the movies I listed in the OP, just terrible, with even LESS redeeming factors than Avatar, which, as you said, says quite a bit about the latest batch.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Those movies also weren't riding the Avatar Cameron hype train.

I don't know, if you walked into any of those movies, I don't really feel sorry for you.

Prince of Persia: Pretty wonderbread Jake Gyllenhaal plays an Arabian hero. Based on a video game.

Clash of the Titans: Okay, maybe this might have had a bit of promise. I was dragged to that in a group for a friend's birthday. It was pretty much inexcusable and made as an easy cash-in on the lame ass 3D craze, which in all honesty, while neat to look at, is only a gimmick and not a necessary technological transition for movies like Black and White to Color (though I love my B&W flicks too, and B&W serves a different purpose than color).

Wake me up when they can make us dream movies as either an active or invisible participant, which won't be in our lifetimes, so uh, don't wake me, unless they find out how to cryogenically freeze me, which I wouldn't do anyway because I wouldn't abandon my own life for THE FUTURE.

Robin Hood: Ridley Scott, I don't think he's had much a good track record lately. And it's fucking Robin Hood. Done to death, who cares.

Actually, speaking of the director, I saw Blade Runner for the first time, and couldn't really understand what the hype was about. I can understand what it did for its time, it's a pretty sweet update on the noir genre, but personally, I don't know, it was a little hard to enjoy. Anything short of it blowing away would have been a disappointment, though, I've heard about it for ages. I'm going to watch it again once, maybe twice before returning it, but then I'll probably be finished with it. I think I would enjoy the movie more in theatres, for what it's worth. The cinematography is good.

The Last Airbender: HAHAHAHAHA. If a person goes into this not expecting a laugh riot... well, they probably don't follow movies or were a fan of the television program. Man, I want to see that when I have time to kill.

I saw a clip of it on youtube, and I will say this, M. Night at least has a handy way with a camera. I like the long takes he does.

Sorcerer's Apprentice: I don't think I've seen the trailer for this but the name sounds dumb.

[alien space marine]

Avatar was good, It just doesn't have much re-watch value as James Cameron's previous works , the "ferngulliness" annoyed the hell out of me. Avatar was good but not Great, It was hyped up and the story while not terrible is still fairly cliche and reminiscent of other films. Since Clash of the Titans I have gone from liking Sam Worthington too outright loathing him , Just another unnecessary and mediocre remake to a older classic..

If you went into the theater Expecting "Expendables" too have Oscar worthy acting and plot your an idiot! The film is as it was intended to be, a Romance to the fans of the 80's-90's action genre , It also sets up the possibility for a sequel were the long rivalry between Schwarzenegger & Stallone finally gets to be played out on screen.

[Sacred Jellybean]

If Expendables was a love letter to good action movies it probably should have had good action scenes at the very least.

I wasn't only expecting bad acting, I was expecting self-aware bad acting. If they're trying to amalgamate the best parts of action movies they probably should have put on something that was worth watching. Evidently, the best bet is to go back to the old action movies themselves and watch them again, because Expendables is far from a worthy contendor.

The movie really shouldn't have tried to take itself seriously. Ugh, the wasted potential.

[Great Rumbler]

I don't know, if you walked into any of those movies, I don't really feel sorry for you.

I saw Inception and The Last Airbender in the theater. The later because I wanted to see just how bad it was, I was not disappointed! All the others I rented on Netflix.