>>55897640The scale of these projects is enormous and an IP like Pokemon demanded a huge return on investment. The budget estimations you see on the internet are low-balled PR estimates and don't include the fucking enormous marketing and distribution costs, the former which would have been ridiculously expensive with how hard this film got pushed. Revenue is also not profit, and the theater's got a cut too.
So yes, when you consider the huge amount of time and money spent on the project for a meager (if any) return, it was a flop. The movie was too weird to attract the kind of audiences TPC thought it would, and has mostly faded from public consciousness making its impact on the franchise more or less nil. It wasn't a little passion project where they were happy to break even. They wanted a tentpole film.
