Blade Runner 2049” is officially a flop, having failed to make its expected numbers during the first weekend of release. Deadline Hollywood has a wonderful two-part post-mortem that has some of the usual reasons. The movie was too long. It was a sequel to another movie that came out over 30 years ago. Young people avoided the film in droves. The pace was too slow. The marketing was off.

All of these reasons have some validity. It should be noted that the original film did not do very well in its first run and only became a cult classic later. “Blade Runner 2049” may have the same fate and it may even be saved by overseas markets.

By all accounts, there is nothing wrong with the movie artistically. “Blade Runner 2049” will likely be taught in film schools. However, one overwhelming reason exists why the film is bombing at the box office.

People are sick and tired of dystopian science fiction

Just about every Science Fiction Film depicts the future as a horrible place, filled with tyranny, pollution, and bleak lives for most people. From “The Hunger Games” series, that depicted teenagers being forced to fight to the death for the amusement of the adults, to the reboot of “Mad Max,” movies suggest that we should not wish to grow old because things, as bad as they are, will just get worse.

As we mentioned before, the future depicted by the original “Blade Runner,” which came out in the early 1980s, never came to pass.

The sequel set 30 years in the future of the original was not even credible as a dystopia. “Blade Runner 2049” should be better described as an alternate future dystopia, something that will never come to be.

How about more movies set in a better future?

One reason why “The Martian,” which came out two years ago, was such a hit was that its future was not horrible.

Twenty or so years hence, people are exploring Mars. NASA was actually getting the funding it needs to send humans across the interstellar void. No one would prefer hunting replicants across a pollution ravage hellscape to pushing back the final frontier.

The message that the film going public is telling Hollywood is clear.

They want more movies like “The Martian” and fewer like “Blade Runner 2049.” People would like to think that the future is going to be better than the present. That’s one reason one has high hopes for the movie version of “Artemis,” Andy Weir’s great book set in a lunar colony. Making that movie is a significant first step.