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, 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? Not so much. Thankfully, 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.
03:148. A 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 announced
03:25less than a year after Robin Williams' tragic death.
03:29Beyond some deeming it too soon to mount a Jumanji sequel following Williams' passing, there
03:34was the obvious opposition to a new film which couldn't feature him at all. And by the time
03:39it was confirmed that the new Jumanji would switch out the board game for a video game,
03:44most had readily dismissed it as a soulless soft reboot nobody was asking for.
03:49But what a pleasant surprise Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle turned out to be, largely due to
03:54its inspired central gimmick – the players being embodied by larger-than-life avatars within
03:59the game, crossed with a hilarious body swap element. The chemistry between the in-game
04:04cast was terrific. Jack Black genuinely gave one of the finest performances of his career,
04:11it was relentlessly fun and action-packed and even circled back to the original Jumanji in
04:16a way that sincerely honoured it. And beyond that, despite releasing mere days after Star Wars The Last
04:21Jedi, it still grossed almost $1 billion globally. I mean, who could have seen any of that coming?
04:287. Keanu 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 release,
04:39he'd been in a serious slump for the better part of a decade following the end of the original Matrix
04:44trilogy. The 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. And so when Reeves was
04:57announced to be starring in a new action thriller as an assassin seeking to avenge his murdered puppy,
05:03of course the knee-jerk response was to laugh. Many predicted it might score 0% on Rotten Tomatoes
05:10before release – that's how lacking in momentum Reeves' career was at the time. This had glorified video
05:16on demand movie that somehow secured a theatrical release vibes all over it. But oh how wrong we all
05:22were. John 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 and
05:34sharply staged stylish action. In turn, John Wick revitalised Reeves' career, ensuring he's appeared in
05:41countless quality projects since, including three increasingly impressive John Wick sequels. I mean
05:47that's definitely a turnaround. 6. 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 so mundane?
06:05Yet, betting against David Fincher is a fool's errand at this point, because paired with the screenplay
06:10from a never-better Aaron Sorkin and a superb ensemble cast, The Social Network wasn't just a good or
06:16even great movie – it's one of the best of the last 20 years. Fincher's film is so much more than
06:23the Facebook movie. It's a fascinating examination of entrepreneurship in the internet era, a gripping
06:29courtroom drama that questions the nature of IP ownership, and a razor-sharp character study of
06:35Facebook's controversial 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. That it lost both Best Picture and Best Director Oscars to The King's
06:59Speech, 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 Becomes Superheroes
07:10Guardians 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
07:23superheroes and delving into weirder, riskier territory. And let's be honest, on paper,
07:28it's easy to appreciate just how much of a gamble James Gunn movie was, being adapted from a niche
07:34Marvel comic general audiences had no knowledge of, which counted among its team a talking raccoon
07:39and a sentient tree monster. In the wrong hands, this could have been an absolute bust, an unwielding
07:46mess which felt at odds with the rest of the MCU and 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
08:01cinematic medium with wit, panache and most of all, heart. Guardians ended up netting almost 800
08:08million dollars globally, making it the third highest grossing MCU film at the time, behind only
08:15the Avengers and Iron Man 3. An impressive feat for a film so many were readily and understandably
08:21betting against. Number 4. A stranded man befriends a farting corpse. Swiss Army Man.
08:27Generally speaking, first time directors are advised to set their sights modestly and tackle a more
08:32familiar genre film before 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
08:44gigantic swing by making a movie about a man stranded on a desert island, so far so good,
08:50who 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 world the
09:13most recent Best Picture Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All At Once, another borderline miracle
09:19of a movie that could have gone totally awry in different hands. So no matter what the Daniels make
09:24in the future, they've certainly got the benefit of the doubt at this point.
09:28Number 3. A father disguises himself as a female housekeeper to get closer to his kids.
09:33Number 4. Mrs 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, suggesting a kooky
09:53comedy 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
10:10and those who always suffer the most, the kids. Underneath its fundamentally ridiculous premise is a film
10:16that has something to say and commits fully to its emotional ideas, rather than merely serving up a
10:22predictably syrupy, happy ending. It helps that Robin Williams is excellent in the lead role,
10:28of course, and while not every aspect of Mrs Doubtfire has aged superbly, it remains a tremendously
10:33popular film that transcends its potentially disastrous premise.
10:38Number 2. A time travel comedy about a man attempting to prevent incest.
10:42Back to the Future Back to the Future may be one of the most beloved movies of all time, but just think
10:48about how insane and even problematic this must have sounded to Universal executives when it was first
10:54pitched. A time travel comedy where a high schooler heads back to 1955, accidentally gets his teenage
10:59mother hot for him and spends the rest of the movie trying to negate her unknowingly incestual feelings
11:05in order to ensure he isn't wiped out of existence. Yep, 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,
11:16and so it's a little surprise that the script was rejected more than 40 times before finally
11:21getting the green light. But thanks to the witty, creative script, excellent performances and
11:26fantastic direction, Back to the Future triumphed, serving up a cheeky what-if for audiences without
11:32excessively luxuriating in the ickier elements of its narrative. Number 1. Astronauts try to restart
11:38the dying sun with a nuke, Sunshine. From its logline alone, sci-fi film Sunshine was basically
11:45inviting laughter. A group of astronauts take part in a dangerous mission to reignite the
11:50dying sun with a nuke the size of Manhattan. Without any other information, this sounds like
11:55it sits comfortably alongside the core or any number of Roland Emmerich-directed disaster flicks which are
12:01high on digital spectacle but desperately low on brains. Yet, Sunshine is not that movie at all.
12:07Directed with taut style by Danny Boyle from a tense character-driven Alex Garland script, this is a film that
12:14manages to make plausible enough sense out of an undeniably absurd premise, while avoiding the
12:19schlocky blockbuster cliches you'd expect. Though it certainly loses itself a little in the third act,
12:25where it turns into a quasi-slasher movie, for the most part, Sunshine keeps its wild concept tethered to
12:31some semblance of 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 various
12:51social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have
12:55a magical day and I'll see you real soon.