By contrast, take Steven Spielberg's "Munich." That movie was a spectacular flop at the box office, but even more bad news is that all the other venues are disappointing as well. The film cost a lot of money to make, but it will take an estimated two years to even reach the amount of money it took to make. Now THAT is a gigantic flop, especially considering all the talent that was poured into it.
Munich was a flop, but it wasn't a spectacular flop. It only cost $70 million to make, can't really spectacularly flop with that small a budget. And of course it was one of Spielberg's "no really I'm a serious director" movies, those tend to not make much money, but they rev Spielberg up for another one of his license to print money movies. Check Spielberg's page http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Director&id=stevenspielberg.htm
Lots of loss leader "serious" movies followed by a tidy little blockbuster, and frequently the company running the cycle is Universal.
And of course the other big difference is that when Spielberg makes $200 million on a movie he doesn't spend $200 million to make it. Remember it's all relative to the budget, Saving Private Ryan got 2 million less domestically than Kong, but cost 1/3 as much to make. The difference between a $216 million dollar grossing hit, and a $218 million dollar grossing pink slip is $140 million in budget.