The actor's latest offering, "Hypnotic," flailed miserably at the box office this weekend ... raking in just $2.3 million from the 2,100 or so theaters it was playing in. The Robert Rodriguez-directed sci-fi thriller wasn't released by a major studio -- two independent production companies are behind it ... and BA's the marquee talent by a mile as far as cast.

The worst part is that Ben's film reportedly cost around $65 mil to make ... so, yeah, it's coming in at a huge loss. Plus, the reviews stink. Now, his other recent film, "Air," did much better in theaters (around $85M worldwide so far) -- but that one reportedly cost about $90M to produce ... meaning it's just barely breaking even, although it fared better with critics.

Bottom line ... Ben hasn't been cleaning up in ticket sales, but Jennifer Lopez is killing it with at-home viewers. Her new movie, "The Mother," is apparently #1 on Netflix in several countries right now -- and her other recent flick, "Shotgun Wedding" did well for Amazon too.

As far as substance, both of J Lo's movies have gotten very meh reviews -- especially 'SW.' And while her flicks are cranking out good numbers for the streaming services they're released on ... it's hard to gauge what that actually translates to for a bottom line.

Streaming companies tend to keep that data to themselves ... so there's no telling if any given movie actually converts to more subscribers -- which is how they make money.

The takeaway ... it's harder to turn a profit in theaters with original flicks not tied to existing IP, and on the flip side -- it's also hard to tell if streaming success means anything. However, since there's a better spin on the latter, Ben might wanna reconsider his approach.