It’s really weird how marketing and even the name of a film can affect popularity. I was fascinated back in the day to find out that Point Break (One of my all time favorite movies) bombed because of the name.
As someone that doesn’t see ads (no tv) and doesn’t go to theaters any more, I find some occasional gems that bombed at the box office, but are really great movies. Another one that I discovered on Amazon Prime about a year ago is John Carter. This is another one that apparently was hurt by its name. And it was VERY expensive to make, and it shows. It is an amazing film, and yet...
The John Carter story is funny. Originally it was titled John Carter of Mars, a more useful title by far. But then Mars Needs Moms bombed. And Disney for whatever reason decided the movie going public wasn’t into Mars, so they dropped that from John Carter’s title, and generified the trailer. And it bombed too.