- 08/06/2025
A time travel comedy about certain family relations that became the highest-grossing movie of 1985.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Movies are all about the execution, because no matter how good or bad a film might sound
00:05on paper, it's only an idea until it's actually gone before cameras and been edited
00:10into a releasable end product.
00:12The gulf between a film's basic premise and the final result can be massive, and often
00:17the simple details just don't do justice to a movie's finer details.
00:22Case in point, we have these ten great movies, each of which nevertheless seemed like frankly
00:27terrible ideas at a superficial conceptual level, but each ended up proving the many
00:32doubters riotously wrong, turning in a terrifically entertaining final movie that soared far above
00:38and beyond what anyone could have expected pre-release.
00:42And so with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture here with ten terrible ideas that
00:47became great movies.
00:49Number ten, a movie based on Lego, The Lego Movie.
00:54The moment that a movie based on Lego was announced, many rolled their eyes and immediately
00:59dismissed it as a project doomed to be nothing more than a soulless 90-minute commercial for
01:04the plastic toy bricks.
01:06Despite appearing to epitomise Hollywood's creative bankruptcy on paper, the Lego Movie had
01:11a secret weapon in hand, filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
01:17Lord and Miller took an inherently cynical concept and produced something startlingly creative, hilarious,
01:23and beautifully animated.
01:25Thoroughly self-aware of its own torrid potential, while gamely poking fun at the state of modern
01:31blockbusters, the Lego Movie was teeming with invention in every single scene.
01:36The biggest surprise though was the risky live action divergence in the third act, which
01:41only deepened the movie's very earnest, genuine love for toys and play.
01:46To that end, Lord and Miller were able to have their cake and eat it too, producing a subversive,
01:51tongue-in-cheek animated adventure film that still worked as a giddy endorsement for its
01:56titular product.
01:57Everybody won, basically.
01:599.
02:00A Film Set Almost Entirely Inside a Phone Booth
02:03Phone Booth
02:04Movies where characters are trapped in a single location for basically the entire runtime are
02:10always a risk, but at least something like Ryan Reynolds Buried could sell itself on the
02:15inherent anxiety of being buried alive.
02:17Joel Schumacher's phone booth, however, had the decidedly more pedestrian setting of a
02:23New York City phone booth, where protagonist Jew Shepard was held hostage by a sniper with
02:28a grudge.
02:29You can practically picture a studio executive shaking their head the moment somebody pitched
02:34this to them, because while a single location is an easy way to keep a movie's budget down,
02:39that location generally needs to be cinematically compelling.
02:43And a phone booth?
02:45Not so much.
02:46Thankfully, Phone Booth had a hell of a lot going for it.
02:49Schumacher's dynamic direction, which regularly deploys 24 style split screens, a tight, witty
02:55script, and a superb central performance from Colin Farrell, who dominates the screen in
03:00basically every single shot.
03:02And 20 years on, it remains one of the all-time best single location thrillers, proving how smart
03:09filmmaking and strong acting can make the most of an unassuming setting.
03:138.
03:14A Jumanji sequel without Robin Williams – Welcome to the Jungle
03:19It cannot be overstated just how much of a fuss Jumanji fans kicked up when a sequel was
03:25announced less than a year after Robin Williams' tragic death.
03:29Beyond some deeming it too soon to mount a Jumanji sequel following Williams' passing,
03:34there was the obvious opposition to a new film which couldn't feature him at all.
03:38And by the time it was confirmed that the new Jumanji would switch out the board game
03:42for a video game, most had readily dismissed it as a soulless soft reboot nobody was asking
03:48for.
03:49But what a pleasant surprise Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle turned out to be, largely due
03:54to its inspired central gimmick – the players being embodied by larger-than-life avatars
03:59within the game, crossed with a hilarious body swap element.
04:03The chemistry between the in-game cast was terrific.
04:07Jack Black genuinely gave one of the finest performances of his career, it was relentlessly
04:12fun and action-packed and even circled back to the original Jumanji in a way that sincerely
04:17honoured it.
04:18And beyond that, despite releasing mere days after Star Wars The Last Jedi, it still grossed
04:23almost $1 billion globally.
04:25I mean, who could have seen any of that coming?
04:287.
04:29Keanu Reeves Avenges His Murdered Dog – John Wick
04:33Keanu Reeves' career may be back on top right now, but around the time of the first
04:38John Wick's release, he'd been in a serious slump for the better part of a decade following
04:43the end of the original Matrix trilogy.
04:45The critical and or commercial duds were numerous – The Day the Earth Stood Still, Henry's
04:50Crime, and most infamously, the calamitous box office bomb 47 Ronan in 2013.
04:57And so, when Reeves was announced to be starring in a new action thriller as an assassin seeking
05:01to avenge his murdered puppy, of course the knee-jerk response was to laugh.
05:06Many predicted it might score 0% on Rotten Tomatoes before release – that's how lacking
05:11in momentum Reeves' career was at the time. This had glorified video-on-demand movie that
05:17somehow secured a theatrical release vibes all over it. But oh, how wrong we all were!
05:23John Wick ultimately released so strong reviews and turned a hefty profit at the box office,
05:28largely due to its impressively nuanced world-building, darkly humorous script, killer ensemble cast
05:34and sharply staged stylish action. In turn, John Wick revitalised Reeves' career, ensuring
05:40he's appeared in countless quality projects since, including three increasingly impressive
05:45John Wick sequels. I mean, that's definitely a turnaround.
05:496. The Facebook Biopic – The Social Network
05:54So many film lovers groaned loudly when Fox announced development of a film about the creation
05:59of Facebook – because who honestly would be interested in watching a movie about something
06:03so mundane? Yet, betting against David Fincher is a fool's errand at this point, because paired
06:09with a screenplay from a never-better Aaron Sorkin and a superb ensemble cast, The Social Network
06:15wasn't just a good or even great movie – it's one of the best of the last 20 years.
06:21Fincher's film is so much more than the Facebook movie. It's a fascinating examination of entrepreneurship
06:27in the internet era, a gripping courtroom drama that questions the nature of IP ownership, and a
06:33razor-sharp character study of Facebook's controversial figurehead Mark Zuckerberg, brilliantly played
06:39by Jesse Eisenberg. Fincher and Sorkin do about as much with this concept as any filmmakers possibly
06:46could, transforming a potentially dry tale of empire building into a towering drama about one of the most
06:52pivotal creations of the 21st century. That it lost both Best Picture and Best Director Oscars to the
06:59King's Speech – a fine film mind – is a decision that's aged like milk left out in the sun all day long.
07:055. A talking raccoon and tree monster become superheroes – Guardians of the Galaxy
07:12Guardians of the Galaxy marked a concerted effort by Marvel Studios to expand the storytelling ambition
07:18of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, venturing beyond the more basic origin stories for its focal superheroes
07:24and delving into weirder, riskier territory. And let's be honest, on paper, it's easy to appreciate
07:29just how much of a gamble James Gunn movie was, being adapted from a niche Marvel comic general
07:35audiences had no knowledge of, which counted among its team a talking raccoon and a sentient tree monster.
07:42In the wrong hands, this could have been an absolute bust – an unwielding mess which felt at odds
07:47with the rest of the MCU and consequently failed to connect with audiences. Had it bombed at the box
07:53office, would anyone have really been surprised? But Kevin Feige was smart to hire Gunn for the job,
07:59who was able to translate the comic book to the cinematic medium with wit, panache and most of all,
08:05heart. Guardians ended up netting almost $800 million globally, making it the third highest grossing
08:12MCU film at the time, behind only The Avengers and Iron Man 3, an impressive feat for a film so many
08:19were readily and understandably betting against. 4. A stranded man befriends a farting corpse,
08:26Swiss Army Man. Generally speaking, first-time directors are advised to set their sights modestly
08:32and tackle a more familiar genre film before venturing into more ambitious territory on their
08:37sophomore feature. But in their debut Swiss Army Man, filmmakers Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan
08:43decided to take a gigantic swing by making a movie about a man stranded on a desert island,
08:49so far so good, who befriends a flatulent corpse which washes up on the shore.
08:54The potential for disaster speaks for itself here, but Scheinert and Kwan have such a firm
08:58handle on their movie's tone and Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe commit so fervently to their roles,
09:04but the film is able to wring unexpected profundity from a superficially crude premise.
09:09And without its success, the Daniels almost certainly wouldn't have gone on to give the
09:13world the most recent Best Picture Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All At Once,
09:18another borderline miracle of a movie that could have gone totally awry in different hands.
09:23So no matter what the Daniels make in the future, they've certainly got the benefit of the doubt at
09:27this point. 3. A father disguises himself as a female housekeeper to get closer to his kids.
09:34Mrs Doubtfire Imagine trying to pitch Mrs Doubtfire today.
09:38It would be laughed out of every office in Hollywood in record time.
09:42A film where a man dresses up as a female housekeeper in order to have greater contact
09:47with his children following his divorce sounds awful when you speak it aloud,
09:52suggesting a kooky comedy where Robin Williams dons a fat suit and frolics around for lowest
09:56common denominator laughs. But it's a testament to director Chris Columbus that, while an inherent
10:02funny concept, Mrs Doubtfire is actually an unexpectedly thoughtful, even mature,
10:08dramedy about the pain of divorce and those who always suffer the most, the kids.
10:13Underneath its fundamentally ridiculous premise is a film that has something to say and commits
10:18fully to its emotional ideas, rather than merely serving up a predictably syrupy, happy ending.
10:25It helps that Robin Williams is excellent in the lead role, of course, and while not every aspect of
10:29Mrs Doubtfire has aged superbly, it remains a tremendously popular film that transcends its
10:35potentially disastrous premise.
10:382. A time travel comedy about a man attempting to prevent incest, Back to the Future
10:44Back to the Future may be one of the most beloved movies of all time, but just think about how insane
10:49and even problematic this must have sounded to Universal executives when it was first pitched.
10:54A time travel comedy where a high schooler heads back to 1955, accidentally gets his teenage mother
11:00hot for him and spends the rest of the movie trying to negate her unknowingly incestual feelings in
11:05order to ensure he isn't wiped out of existence. Yep, that's the highest-grossing movie of 1985.
11:12There's obviously far more to the movie than that, but at its core, that's what it's about,
11:16and so it's a little surprised that the script was rejected more than 40 times before finally getting
11:21the green light. But thanks to the witty, creative script, excellent performances and fantastic
11:27direction, Back to the Future triumphed, serving up a cheeky what-if for audiences without excessively
11:33luxuriating in the ickier elements of its narrative.
11:361. Astronauts try to restart the dying sun with a nuke, Sunshine
11:42From its logline alone, sci-fi film Sunshine was basically inviting laughter. A group of astronauts take
11:48part in a dangerous mission to reignite the dying sun with a nuke the size of Manhattan.
11:53Without any other information, this sounds like it sits comfortably alongside the core,
11:57or any number of Roland Emmerich-directed disaster flicks which are high on digital spectacle but
12:03desperately low on brains. Yet, Sunshine is not that movie at all. Directed with taut style by Danny
12:10Boyle from a tense, character-driven Alex Garland script, this is a film that manages to make plausible
12:15enough sense out of an undeniably absurd premise, while avoiding the schlocky blockbuster cliches
12:21you'd expect. Though it certainly loses itself a little in the third act, where it turns into
12:26a quasi-slasher movie, for the most part Sunshine keeps its wild concept tethered to some semblance
12:32of reality, and crucially ensures you won't be tempted to laugh even once.
12:37And that concludes our list. If you can think of any other examples then we'd love to see them in
12:42the comments down below and while you're there don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that
12:46notification bell. Also head over to Twitter and follow us there and I can be found across
12:51various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture,
12:55I hope you have a magical day and I'll see you real soon.
Recommended
11:26
|
Up next
10:44
13:23
11:22
11:16
14:22
1:25
2:05
1:23
1:59
11:23
12:32