- 06/07/2025
A time travel comedy about certain family relations that became the highest-grossing movie of 1985.
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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.
02:11But at least something like Ryan Reynolds' Buried could sell itself on the inherent anxiety of
02:16being buried alive.
02:18Joel 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.
02:35Because while a single location is an easy way to keep a movie's budget down, that location
02:40generally 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 John Wick's
04:39release, he'd been in a serious slump for the better part of a decade following the end
04:43of the original Matrix trilogy.
04:45The critical and or commercial duds were numerous, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Henry's Crime,
04:51and 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 in
05:12momentum Reeves' career was at the time.
05:14This had glorified video-on-demand movie that somehow secured a theatrical release vibes
05:19all 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.
05:37In turn John Wick revitalised Reeves' career, ensuring he's appeared in countless
05:41quality projects since, including three increasingly impressive John Wick sequels.
05:47I mean that's definitely a turnaround.
05:50Number 6.
05:50The Facebook biopic, The Social Network
05:54So many film lovers groaned loudly when Fox announced development of a film about the
05:58creation of Facebook, because who honestly would be interested in watching a movie about
06:03something so mundane?
06:04Yet, betting against David Fincher is a fool's errand at this point, because paired with the
06:09screenplay 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.
06:24It's a fascinating examination of entrepreneurship in the internet era, a gripping courtroom drama
06:30that questions the nature of IP ownership, and a razor-sharp character study of Facebook's
06:36controversial figurehead Mark Zuckerberg, brilliantly played by Jesse Eisenberg.
06:41Fincher and Sorkin do about as much with this concept as any filmmakers possibly could, transforming
06:47a potentially dry tale of empire building into a towering drama about one of the most pivotal
06:53creations of the 21st century.
06:56That it lost both Best Picture and Best Director Oscars to The King's Speech, a fine film mind,
07:01is a decision that's aged like milk left out in the sun all day long.
07:05Number 5. 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
07:17ambition of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, venturing beyond the more basic origin stories
07:22for its focal superheroes, and delving into weirder, riskier territory.
07:27And let's be honest, on paper, it's easy to appreciate just how much of a gamble James Gunn movie was,
07:33being adapted from a niche Marvel comic general audiences had no knowledge of,
07:37which 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 with the rest of the MCU,
07:49and consequently failed to connect with audiences.
07:52Had it bombed at the box office, would anyone have really been surprised?
07:56But Kevin Feige was smart to hire Gunn for the job, who was able to translate the comic book to the cinematic medium
08:03with wit, panache and, most of all, heart.
08:06Guardians ended up netting almost $800 million globally, making it the third highest grossing MCU film at the time,
08:14behind only The Avengers and Iron Man 3, an impressive feat for a film so many
08:19were readily and understandably betting against.
08:22Number 4. A stranded man befriends a farting corpse.
08:26Swiss Army Man.
08:27Generally speaking, first-time directors are advised to set their sights modestly and tackle a more familiar genre film,
08:34before venturing into more ambitious territory on their sophomore feature.
08:38But in their debut Swiss Army Man, filmmakers Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan decided to take a gigantic swing
08:45by making a movie about a man stranded on a desert island, so 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 handle on their movie's tone,
09:00and Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe commit so fervently to their roles, but 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 world the most recent Best Picture Oscar winner
09:15Everything Everywhere All At Once, another borderline miracle of a movie that could have gone totally awry in different hands.
09:22So no matter what the Daniels make in the future, they've certainly got the benefit of the doubt at this point.
09:273. A Father Disguises Himself As A Female Housekeeper To Get Closer To His Kids
09:33Mrs. Doubtfire
09:35Imagine trying to pitch Mrs. Doubtfire today. It 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 with his children following his divorce sounds awful when you speak it aloud.
09:51Suggesting a kooky comedy where Robin Williams dons a fat suit and frolics around for lowest common denominator laughs.
09:58But it's a testament to director Chris Columbus that, while an inherent funny concept,
10:03Mrs. Doubtfire is actually an unexpectedly thoughtful, even mature, dramedy 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 fully to its emotional ideas,
10:20rather than merely serving up a predictably syrupy happy ending.
10:24It helps that Robin Williams is excellent in the lead role, of course, and while not every aspect of Mrs. Doubtfire has aged superbly,
10:31it remains a tremendously popular film that transcends its potentially disastrous premise.
10:372. A time travel comedy about a man attempting to prevent incest.
10:42Back 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 and even problematic this must have sounded to Universal executives when it was first pitched.
10:543. A time travel comedy where a high schooler heads back to 1955, accidentally gets his teenage mother hot for him,
11:00and spends the rest of the movie trying to negate her unknowingly incestual feelings in order to ensure he isn't wiped out of existence.
11:07Yep, that's the highest-grossing movie of 1985.
11:11There's obviously far more to the movie than that, but at its core, that's what it's about, and so it's a little surprised that the script was rejected more than 40 times before finally getting the green light.
11:22But thanks to the witty, creative script, excellent performances, and fantastic direction, Back to the Future triumphed,
11:29serving up a cheeky what-if for audiences without excessively luxuriating in the ickier elements of its narrative.
11:351. Astronauts try to restart the dying sun with a nuke, Sunshine.
11:41From its logline alone, sci-fi film Sunshine was basically inviting laughter.
11:46A group of astronauts take part 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 desperately low on brains.
12:04Yet, Sunshine is not that movie at all.
12:07Directed with taut style by Danny Boyle from a tense character-driven Alex Garland script,
12:13this is a film that manages to make plausible enough sense out of an undeniably absurd premise,
12:18while avoiding the schlocky blockbuster cliches you'd expect.
12:22Though it certainly loses itself a little in the third act, where it turns into a quasi-slasher movie,
12:27for the most part, Sunshine keeps its wild concept tethered to some semblance of reality,
12:33and crucially ensures you won't be tempted to laugh even once.
12:38And that concludes our list.
12:39If you can think of any other examples, then we'd love to see them in the comments down below,
12:43and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that notification bell.
12:47Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there,
12:49and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
12:53I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.
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