I wish I agreed, because that would mean box office numbers (or ratings, or whatever else indicates financial success) are the result of a meritocracy, and that word of mouth is as powerful as we'd like it to be. But in the same year that Blade Runner 2049 flopped, the live-action Beauty and the Beast made half a billion dollars in the U.S. alone. Whatever one thinks about BR2049, at least it still gets discussed, and audiences are still reevaluating it. Meanwhile, the live action Beauty and the Beast was a cultural fart in the wind. I keep forgetting it ever happened.
That same year there was a massive word-of-mouth success story: Get Out. But that movie was lightning in a bottle, that no one predicted, and its $176M made it a smash success no matter how low its budget was. Meanwhile, word of mouth and critical acclaim didn't pull Atomic Blonde or Lady Bird or tons of other well-received movies to anywhere near the same dizzying heights as Get Out. Are those movies worse than the better-performing Sully or Daddy's Home 2, or even less-talked-about at the time?
I don't think so, but it's all subjective, if you want it to be.