Rebecca Ferguson’s ‘Mercy’ Taps Out With Lower Gross Than 1984's Most Infamous Sci-Fi Dud

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Published Feb 19, 2026, 6:23 PM EST

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

The year’s first major box office underperformer, the sci-fi film Mercy, was unceremoniously released on transactional streaming platforms earlier this week. Mercy has had an underwhelming run in theaters and still hasn’t recouped its reported $60 million budget after a month of release. However, the movie’s positive audience scores are an encouraging sign for its future on home video. And the results look promising already; on its first day of release on the PVOD market, Mercy rose to the top of the domestic viewership charts. Meanwhile, it seems to have run its course in theaters. Mercy may still hit the $60 million mark worldwide, but it would ideally have needed to make at least $150 million globally to break even. The film’s disappointing final haul makes it a bigger dud than the most infamous sci-fi failure of the 1980s.

With under $25 million domestically and another $29 million from overseas markets, Mercy’s cumulative global haul stands at $53 million. The movie features Chris Pratt as a police officer accused of murdering his wife, and Rebecca Ferguson as the artificial-intelligence-powered judge tasked with hearing his case. Directed by “screenlife” pioneer Timur Bekmambetov — who previously worked with Pratt on the 2008 action film Wanted — Mercy opened to poor reviews. It has now settled at a 24% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “Constricting its two stars inside an airless presentation of a clunky techno-thriller premise, Mercy is tedious enough to make you cry uncle.” However, the film’s 83% audience score is already helping its PVOD performance.

Here's the Infamous 1980s' Box Office Bomb That 'Mercy' Couldn't Overtake

That said, no amount of home video success can change the fact that Mercy struggled at the box office. The movie’s $24 million domestic haul is lower than the $28 million that David Lynch’s divisive 1984 Dune adaptation grossed. The Dune books have since been turned into a blockbuster three-film franchise by Denis Villeneuve, whose trilogy will conclude later this year with Dune: Part Three. Incidentally, the new Dune movies feature Ferguson in a prominent supporting role. Lynch’s Dune, on the other hand, has developed a cult following despite the filmmaker’s displeasure with the theatrical cut. You can watch both Dune and Mercy at home. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.