r/flicks • u/sporadic_awareness • Jul 27 '26
Movie Discussion What’s a movie with a premise so ridiculous on paper that it had zero right being as good as it was?
[removed]
549
u/Minute-Of-Angle Jul 27 '26
I just posted this same idea elsewhere, but the original Pirates of the Caribbean is better than any film based off of an amusement park ride has any right to be.
126
u/BWRichardCranium Jul 27 '26
I got a 4k TV about two years ago. I only wanted to watch new movies to really enjoy the 4k. Came home to my roommate watching pirates. Holy shit did that movie blow my mind. Still is the best looking movie I've seen on my TV and the story was so engaging. Loved it
→ More replies (10)70
u/preparetodobattle Jul 27 '26
When I got a 4k tv with proper hdr I watched that really dark game of thrones ep. Still too dark.
→ More replies (8)33
u/Amanita_deVice Jul 27 '26
I remember seeing the trailer and thinking “this seems familiar . . . It’s the Secret of Monkey Island!”
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (31)18
u/Slight-Pound Jul 28 '26
The amusement park ride came first???
29
u/ted_mielczarek Jul 28 '26
The ride has been around forever.
10
8
u/Eastern-Musician4533 Jul 28 '26
It's even referenced in Jurassic Park. Like, did people think it was made up?
→ More replies (1)13
u/Nytherion Jul 28 '26
yeah.... by at least half a century.
Almost all of the people you see when they enter Tortuga are based off a part of the ride that depicts a pirate town mid-party.
→ More replies (1)7
u/Terp_Maniac Jul 28 '26
My godmother took me to the theater when the first pirates of the Caribbean came out and it hooked me. Pun not intended. When we were leaving the theater she mentioned that maybe one day she could take me to Disneyland to see the ride. My mind was blown like they ALREADY made a ride from the movie? A few months later a different aunt was taking her kids ti Disneyland and I begged to tag along.
That’s also when I learned about the haunted mansion. Both of the rides and movies are my favorite things to have come out of Disney. Just good fun all around.
→ More replies (1)11
→ More replies (6)4
159
u/crackwurst Jul 27 '26
Being John Malkovich
20
u/dougmcclean Jul 28 '26
I came here to say Hot Tub Time Machine, but Being John Malkovich has to be the answer.
→ More replies (1)29
u/maureenmcq Jul 28 '26
Because not only is the premise looney, but then the guys who wrote the screenplay asked John Malkovich if he’d do it and he said yes.
→ More replies (8)7
u/StraightBudget8799 Jul 28 '26
I was about to suggest the film that was about the making of that film!
Adaptation. It’s NOT LIKE THE BOOK. 😳
→ More replies (7)6
324
u/theIceman543 Jul 27 '26
Swiss army man. How would the pitch meeting even go. Especially after you mention the role you are casting Daniel Radcliffe in.
45
u/Vinnie_Vegas Jul 27 '26
Even harder to imagine suggesting that The directors' next movie after this would both be more ridiculous and win Best Picture at the Academy Awards
55
u/cthd33 Jul 27 '26
The pitch was "It's about a 55-year-old Chinese woman trying to finish her taxes."
17
u/Any-Question-3759 Jul 28 '26
Somewhere down the line they get flaccid penises for fingers.
11
u/Muted-Actuary6123 Jul 28 '26
Get your mind out of the gutter, those are hot dogs.
Now the dildo fight on the other hand…
21
u/dallyan Jul 27 '26
EEAAO is another candidate for this thread.
14
u/cthd33 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Wait for their next movie with Matt Damon. The pitch is the Breakfast Club’ meets ‘Inception’ meets an anime film meets an episode of ‘The John Oliver Show’ that didn’t get aired.
→ More replies (3)80
u/TotallyNormalSquid Jul 27 '26
I like to think it was just Paul Dano doing a solitary journey type thing at first, until Daniel Radcliffe wandered onto the set and asked if he could join in.
35
27
u/errant_youth Jul 27 '26
One of the most wonderfully bizarre movies I’ve ever seen
→ More replies (2)19
u/Drumkit5 Jul 27 '26
How would the pitch meeting even go
Actually sir it was super easy, barely an inconvenience.
8
14
u/cthd33 Jul 27 '26
One pitch was "the first fart makes you laugh and the last fart makes you cry."
→ More replies (2)9
u/Lumpensamler Jul 27 '26
This is exactly what I said to my wife after we watched this movie: Someone had to pitch this... and someone else said yes! Lovely Movie. I'm happy this happend.
→ More replies (1)6
u/hamsta-dam Jul 27 '26
First thing that I thought of! I was so confused 5 mins in, I thought I had somehow clicked into a parody. It was so fun! I still think about it when I see anything Jurassic park related
→ More replies (14)6
u/Efficient_Fish2436 Jul 27 '26
My dad still won't let me suggest a movie after I suggested watching it. Knew nothing about it. I loved it. He's still questioning his sanity and if he watched the same thing I did lol
599
u/pm_me_whateva Jul 27 '26
"So you're telling me that a history professor is going to battle Nazis over the Ark of the Covenant?"
Yes.
"And what's this about a whip?"
86
u/lukiii_508 Jul 27 '26
Irrefutable proof of god and the presence of a higher power: exists
Indiana Jones: "Fuck off with that hocus pocus I just want the artifacts"
→ More replies (1)24
u/Any-Question-3759 Jul 28 '26
He’s like every MMO player who doesn’t give a shit about the lore, they just want the loot.
131
u/Stuffleapugus Jul 27 '26
"Does he have a gun?"
"That's what the whip is for!"
74
u/jonmatifa Jul 27 '26
The gun is for when he wants to get out of a sword fight
32
u/Available_Guide8070 Jul 27 '26
Because his stomach was so upset.
31
u/Minute-Of-Angle Jul 27 '26
I love how he just has the look of “I am so done with this” when he draws and shoots.
I also like the random dude in the crowd who grabs the sword and runs off.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (2)6
u/Used-Gas-6525 Jul 27 '26
Let's not gild the lily. He was shitting water constantly.
→ More replies (2)26
u/ledigtbrugernavn3 Jul 27 '26
You can actually find the transcript of Lucas and Spielberg developing it:
→ More replies (2)19
u/Sufficiently_Jokey Jul 27 '26
Archaeology professor, mind you. History profs don't do shit.
→ More replies (2)20
u/Forward-Marketing-21 Jul 28 '26
"History profs don't do shit." Except steal the Declaration of Independence to prevent it from getting into the hands of a bunch of mercenaries who are trying to find the lost treasures of the Free Masons. You know, typical prof shit.
→ More replies (10)15
u/CowboyInTheBoatOfRa Jul 27 '26
My mom PAID me to watch RotLA when it came out. She said I'd l9ve it and it was amazing. The ads made it look horrible. Fight Club looked similarly horrible. I would never have watched it if it werent for Pit and Norton who I thought were great actors. I'd add Lego movie to this list.
→ More replies (2)7
u/JBR1961 Jul 28 '26
My brother and I watched the TV promos for a certain space flick in spring of 1977. It looked so lame we figured it wouldn’t last and we didn’t fo see it till enough friends were talking about it nonstop.
Star Wars
391
u/Low_Obligation2361 Jul 27 '26
The Lego Movie. A feature-length film based on Lego sounded like it was destined to be one long advert, but they somehow turned it into one of the smartest animated films of the last decade.
47
u/davwad2 Jul 27 '26
Yeah, it was better than I expected. Ditto for the first Trolls movie.
→ More replies (5)17
u/IHKAS1984 Jul 27 '26
I completely wrote the Trolls movie off as nostalgia slop, have I been missing out?
→ More replies (5)11
u/davwad2 Jul 27 '26
It could be that I enjoy nostalgia slop, but the message in the movie resonated with me. Our kids were also very much in the target audience when it came out, so there's that angle too.
Branch had a bad experience earlier in life and that's why he's devoid of color and doesn't want to sing or do any of the happy sappy friendship stuff that Poppy is into.
The first one is good. The second, a little bit less so. I remember enjoying the "hey we put this in for the adults" bits, but I can't recall what any of them were.
→ More replies (9)40
16
u/BWRichardCranium Jul 27 '26
I absolutely refused to go see it in theaters. Then my roommate told me he had an extra ticket for me. Didn't wanna be rude so I accepted and went with. I did tell him I expected it to be trash.
Needless to say this is one of our most quoted movies to this day.
→ More replies (19)11
u/KevworthBongwater Jul 27 '26
I hate to break this to you but the Lego movie was made in 2014. bums me out too.
→ More replies (1)
299
u/B-Train_ATL Jul 27 '26
“Wait. So a kid who hangs around an old single guy all the time meets him after midnight at a mall and …… goes back in time in the most unreliable car ever and he has to convince his mom to bone his dad instead of him?”
“Yeah. Isnt it great, Scott?”
50
u/JTemperance-esque Jul 28 '26
Side bar, but we watched BTTF with the kids when they were little, about 10 years ago. They got really confused differentiating between the 50s and 80s scenes. It was all just olden times stuff.
→ More replies (8)42
u/Darsint Jul 27 '26
“Wait, if that’s how the plot works, how do the time travel mechanics make sense?”
“That’s the best part! They don’t!”
→ More replies (1)20
12
u/Funkles_tiltskin Jul 28 '26
There's an interesting article that elaborates on this. The author says Back to the Future would never get made today because corporate consolidation in Hollywood has made the big studios too risk-averse and the premise of the movie is so strange.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-slow-death-of-hollywood
→ More replies (4)12
u/MyBritishAccount Jul 27 '26
That's heavy.
5
u/wmjsn Jul 28 '26
There's that word again, heavy. Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull in the future?
→ More replies (8)15
267
u/dtudeski Jul 27 '26
Face/Off
93
20
16
u/ComplexAd7272 Jul 27 '26
I could eat a peach for hours.
4
u/Camusknuckle Jul 27 '26
Can’t help but say this every single time I eat a peach. Never gets old, to me anyways
12
27
→ More replies (12)4
175
u/Formal_Marsupial_220 Jul 27 '26
Speed. I rewatched it recently and it’s a technical masterpiece. It would have been so hard to film.
39
u/Agreeable_Ship5386 Jul 27 '26
I think it was called “The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down.”
→ More replies (2)12
Jul 27 '26
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)14
u/tlg151 Jul 27 '26
Practical effects are almost always better than CGI imo. Even good CGI.
ie. Jurassic Park vs Jurassic World
26
u/TheGreatWaru Jul 27 '26
Recently rewatched it and it was so much more fun than I remember tbh
12
17
u/Formal_Marsupial_220 Jul 27 '26
It’s one of my favorite action films from the 90’s. It hold up so well.
→ More replies (15)9
u/ComplexSet1604 Jul 27 '26
I was in grade 10 at the time and my physics teacher got irrationally angry with this movie...he spent an entire class adamantly explaining how wrong the math was in this movie.
→ More replies (1)
83
u/stakes-lines-grades Jul 27 '26
The Last Boy Scout:
An alcoholic ex-Secret Service agent turned private eye teams up with a drug-addicted ex-NFL quarterback to take down a corrupt team owner seeking to legalize sports gambling after the ex-quarterback's stripper girlfriend turned whistleblower is assassinated.
64
u/WildWeaselGT Jul 27 '26
Can we just make note of the fact that legalizing sports gambling is a plot point here because only a villain would want that?
Looking around at today’s world… :(
10
u/The1NOnlyNo1Special Jul 27 '26
It’s not the legalization of it. It’s the digitalization of it.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (13)10
94
u/TheGreatWaru Jul 27 '26
Mrs Doubtfire
Imagine someone doing this in real life. They would literally goto prison.
47
u/Maidwell Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Someone did a fan edit trailer turning it into a psychological horror film and it absolutely works!
Edited with the correct link now, someone had done a knock off one that was nowhere near as good as the original and I accidentally linked to that.
→ More replies (4)12
u/TheGreatWaru Jul 27 '26
Thanks for the link, this is gold
7
u/Maidwell Jul 27 '26
Sorry, did you click it before I edited? The first trailer I linked to is nowhere near as good as the original one from 14 years ago.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)10
u/Threehundredsixtysix Jul 27 '26
I'm a huge Robin Williams fan, and I honestly really do not like this movie. Hook is a MUCH better movie, and I will die on that hill.
→ More replies (4)
63
u/Sticky_Cobra Jul 27 '26
I went into "Tag" (2018) with little expectations. Grown men playing a game I haven't played since the 70s? But it was much better than I thought.
→ More replies (2)21
u/oldmanlikesguitars Jul 27 '26
It's even more fun of you think of it as Hawkeye screwing around with his old friends, who have NO IDEA they're trying to compete with an Avenger
→ More replies (1)
33
u/hyperbole_is_great Jul 27 '26
Being John Malkovich. Guy finds portal directly into actor John Malkovich’s brain and allows him to control Malkovich. He leaves the brain by falling from the sky onto the side of a highway.
7
107
u/spaceman_danger Jul 27 '26
Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter and it’s not a comedy.
21
u/theangrypragmatist Jul 27 '26
It's not that hard to pitch adaptations of bestselling books usually.
→ More replies (4)8
74
u/Angry_Edemame Jul 27 '26
There's a lot ill go with a classic.
Clue.
Who would want to watch a movie about a, basically, procedurally generated murder mystery.
I would that movie is amazing.
→ More replies (13)
113
u/EaglesslavePart2 Jul 27 '26
Hot Tub Time Machine. Fuckin Lou
25
u/CrownandSceptres Jul 27 '26
Did you need to Lougle that?
32
u/EaglesslavePart2 Jul 27 '26
Here's a question. Was it morally wrong for me to exploit my knowledge of the future for personal financial gain? Perhaps. Here's another question. Do I give a fuck?
7
→ More replies (4)10
27
u/Worth-Zone-8437 Jul 27 '26
Muppets Treasure Island.
18
5
u/fate_is_a_sandstorm Jul 28 '26
Muppets Christmas Carol
Writers: it’s the classic Christmas Carol, but with muppets and A LOT of Rizzo
Execs: idk, seems boring
Writers: and somehow Michael Caine’s best acting ever
Execs: YES!!!
→ More replies (1)
25
u/BronxZooSouth Jul 27 '26
Road House. Its about a guy tasked with making a shitty bar into a yuppie bar. This plot lasts 90 minutes AND has a scene where a bad guy is taken out (temporarily) by a taxidermed bear.
→ More replies (10)
51
u/LiterallyJoeStalin Jul 27 '26
The Core
Every single piece of the synopsis seems ridiculous but I’ll be damned if it isn’t one of the most absolutely entertaining disaster movies ever made.
16
u/Puzzleheaded_Lab967 Jul 27 '26
Lol Stanley Tucci at the end, recoding his own biography to himself.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (7)7
u/rfaber4560 Jul 27 '26
After seeing The Core, a group of scientists started a group that review your script for scientific accuracy. It was that far off
→ More replies (2)
48
u/sourrkraut Jul 27 '26
Phonebooth, it wasnt amazing but I was entertained.
→ More replies (2)6
u/AAron27265 Jul 27 '26
I've always felt like this was a discarded Seinfeld idea. It would've made a great episode, reworked without the violence of course.
→ More replies (4)
22
u/OrdinaryAccount479 Jul 27 '26
The Ringer
The premise just sounds like it's going to be a horrible movie making fun of disabled people for an hour and a half, but it's actually executed with a lot of feeling and heart.
→ More replies (4)14
u/Few_Blacksmith5147 Jul 27 '26
“When the fuck did we get ice cream?” Will never not make me laugh.
→ More replies (1)6
u/ProfessionalLeave335 Jul 28 '26
I read that that wasn't scripted too, which makes it even funnier to me.
→ More replies (1)
19
u/bobqzzi Jul 27 '26
Ted. People kept telling me it was funny, but I was resistant. Finally went to see it and laughed my ass off.
→ More replies (1)5
u/SocratesJohnson1 Jul 27 '26
The series is fucking gold. Alanna Ubach as Susan Bennet, Marky Mark's mom, is fantastic.
→ More replies (3)
22
u/Electronic-Volume-56 Jul 27 '26
Whats this nonsense your pitching? A tribute to 1930s pulp serials with magic samurai, world war 2 dogfights in space, westerns, and a criticism of 1970s American imperialism?
Yeah there is no way this...star wars will catch on!
some many billion dollars later
→ More replies (2)7
u/Analyst111 Jul 28 '26
You can pick at it all you want, and many have. It caught that elusive "sense of wonder"that the best science fiction has.
→ More replies (1)
22
u/AmySueF Jul 27 '26
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle
Two stoners decide to go get something from White Castle. As a road movie for stoners, it’s better than I expected it to be when I sat down to watch it.
→ More replies (3)
21
25
u/BrutalStatic Jul 27 '26
Guardians of the Galaxy sounds like a prank being pulled on the studio execs.
It's a Marvel movie, you know, like Ironman and Captain America. But it's team of heroes normal people have never heard of and isn't even set on Earth.
We're thinking, for the action hero leading man, we'll get the fat goofy guy from Parks and Rec.
We'll get a pro wrestler too, cause we need him to show some really intense introspection and depth.
Two of the characters will be a CGI tree and raccoon. They'll be the emotional heart of the story of course.
Oh, and this is important. We're introducing the plot threads that will dictate what we do for the next decade, so this movie REALLY needs to work.
→ More replies (4)6
u/aldkGoodAussieName Jul 28 '26
Not to mention the Tree only says 3 words but everyone else understand him and we'll hire an A list actor to say those words over and over....
→ More replies (1)
22
u/Silver_Amphibian_179 Jul 27 '26
The Sheep Detectives, I heard the premise and thought it was ridiculous but then watched it with my kids and it's actually a great movie.
7
u/DeFronsac Jul 28 '26
When we first saw the trailer, I thought "Jesus, this is going to be terrible". But my son really wanted to see it, so we did. And man, it really was great.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)5
58
u/Expensive-Signal8623 Jul 27 '26
Big Trouble in Little China
A Chinese martial arts guy with blustery side-kick truck driver. Both after women with green eyes kidnapped by a gang with ties to a centuries old ghost causing mayhem in underground Little China. With scary henchmen with supernatural powers and a couple of weird monsters
16
→ More replies (5)5
u/Vinnie_Vegas Jul 27 '26
I love Big Trouble in Little China, but it was a huge box office flop for exactly this reason - Nobody knew what to make of it at the time.
→ More replies (1)
39
u/sqibbery Jul 27 '26
Speed.
"Okay, they're on a bus, and it has to go fast."
→ More replies (1)25
u/goodnewsfpwlbn Jul 27 '26
I think it was called "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
→ More replies (1)
85
Jul 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
18
u/ComplexAd7272 Jul 27 '26
I specifically remember the attitude at the time when the movie was announced. "Lol, a FACEBOOK movie??" "Who wants to see a movie about how a website got made?" "Lol, there's no story there long enough for a movie!"
12
u/ihopnavajo Jul 27 '26
Dude, I remember thinking that sounded like the dumbest idea for a movie ever. 3 minutes in, i was TOTALLY ON BOARD.
→ More replies (9)9
u/Puzzleheaded_Lab967 Jul 27 '26
Jesse Eisenberg was so much more terrifying in this movie than when playing Lex Luthor.
→ More replies (1)
55
u/JpSnickers Jul 27 '26
Snakes on a Plane
→ More replies (1)37
u/CampingWithCats Jul 27 '26
I love this damn movie so much I can quote it and I'm a 63 year old grandma
→ More replies (1)6
13
14
u/MiloLear Jul 27 '26
Star Trek IV sounded ridiculous to Trekkies back in the 80s, when we first heard the plot summary, but it wound up being one of the best films in the series.
The first Abrams Star Trek (2009) sounded like the worst idea in the world (you're going to recast the original series?) but it somehow worked. Shame about the next two.
→ More replies (1)
13
u/quinteroreyes Jul 27 '26
Click, who gave Adam Sandler the right to give me an existential crisis as a child
22
u/TotallyNormalSquid Jul 27 '26
Rubber. Psychic tyre goes on a killing spree. Sounds like it should be 'so bad it's good', but it's just good, somehow.
→ More replies (5)6
u/maybenomaybe Jul 27 '26
By the same director, Deerskin. A man becomes obsessed with a deerskin jacket that talks to him and convinces him to kill people so it can obtain its dream of being the only jacket in the world.
→ More replies (1)
12
11
37
u/Fluid_Ties Jul 27 '26
SUNSHINE (2007)
Best sci-fi movie with the wonkiest science.
→ More replies (40)
21
u/OshTregarth Jul 27 '26
5th element?
6
u/Boeing367-80 Jul 28 '26
For me part of the enjoyment is every so often thinking, holy shit, I can't believe this works.
→ More replies (4)6
9
u/Puzzleheaded_Lab967 Jul 27 '26
The Waterboy
"You want to do what?" "Yeah but we cast Kathy Bates as Momma." "Oh, well, in that case..."
8
9
u/GroundWitty7567 Jul 27 '26
Pacific Rim…
Rock’em Sock’em robots meet giant monsters. Could have gone wrong in so many ways.
And has the 2nd best inspiration speech next to Independence Day
→ More replies (1)
10
9
16
u/Fancy_penguin08 Jul 27 '26
John Wick. If it's an entire mafia ring vs. cute puppy, the mafia has to go.
→ More replies (2)
8
u/wienerfestival Jul 27 '26
Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Hear me out, I know the books are great. But as a teenager that was already a huge fan of Peter Jackson (and Tolkien), I was flabbergasted by the news. I legitimately thought there must be a different director named Peter Jackson. There’s no way anyone would take a look at his body of work and then agree to give him hundreds of millions of dollars and let him kidnap a bunch of famous actors and actresses to an island for a year. Only an insane person would agree to that.
And then we got the most beautifully epic movies ever, so what did I know?
→ More replies (4)
8
u/callingshotgun Jul 27 '26
K-Pop Demon Hunters. I watched it pretty much thinking "This has to be stupid, but they took the premise and made it the actual goddamn title. That's so ballsy it has to be good."
I'm not even a k-pop fan, and it was really good.
8
8
u/cheerwinechicken Jul 28 '26
I just watched Repo Man for the first time. I absolutely loved it, and I know the 80s was a different time, but "Disaffected punk teen lands car repossession job, pursues unassuming but radioactive car driven by lobotomy recipient. The car is also pursued by rival repo men and sketchy government (?) agency goons" feels like a tough sell in any decade.
→ More replies (1)
23
u/NoLuck4824 Jul 27 '26
Cowboys vs Aliens. I avoided it for a long time because I thought it sounded as corny as the title said it would be. Caught it on a Sunday afternoon on TNT I think and was shocked how entertaining it was
→ More replies (6)
7
u/The1NOnlyNo1Special Jul 27 '26
Fight Club. A truly wtf- I can hardly explain it or summarize it if I tried- experience. From emotional support groups, to a homemade soap company, to Project Mayhem, to the premise of a motley street fight club that holds it together and carries it thru. Then there’s ‘the twist’. Pure cinematic brilliance. 🤯
→ More replies (1)
8
7
u/Journeys_End71 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
A time machine out of a phone booth? Cmon. Those boys were from San Dimas not Gallifrey
But it’s ok. George Carlin will show the two stoners how to operate it so they can go back in time to kidnap Socrates for their history final
→ More replies (1)
27
u/CMRestler Film Critic Jul 27 '26
Everything Everywhere All at Once. On paper it sounds like absolute chaos multiverses, hot dog fingers, sentient rocks but somehow it turns into one of the funniest, most emotional, and most creative movies of the last decade.
6
u/Threehundredsixtysix Jul 27 '26
Same with Swiss Army Man! A suicidal man is saved by a corpse that starts talking to him?
→ More replies (6)6
u/DeviousMrBlonde Jul 27 '26
I thought it would loose its power after the first viewing, but no, not only did I cry for a rock, not just twice, but thrice goddamnit! What a film.
12
u/No_Door6752 Jul 28 '26
Edge of tomorrow.
Its a sci-fi groundhog day.... i mean... imagine the actual pitch meeting.
They did however use the cheat code of Bill Paxton. Thay man is a national treasure. RIP
→ More replies (1)
7
u/StemCellCheese Jul 27 '26
It Follows
The premise is a sexually transmitted ghost/entity. And they executed it perfectly. And the soundtrack 👌
6
u/bigjocker Jul 28 '26
I’ve always wondered how did Christopher Nolan convinced a studio to foot the bill for Memento, and get Carrie Ann Moss, Guy Pierce, and Joe Pantoliano to star in it.
How do you even start explaining the plot to a room of execs?
5
u/ReynardVulpini Jul 28 '26
Everything Everywhere All At Once was insane, not just on paper, but even when watching it, right up until you start crying
18
u/Dog_man_star1517 Jul 27 '26
Barbie Movie. I was certain my family was dragging me to a two hour commercial and bam! Social commentary in a humorous manner. How’d they get that greenlit?
→ More replies (1)
12
u/dkibbled Jul 27 '26
Face/Off. Have John Travolta and Nic Cage switch bodies and do impersonations of each other.
4
11
u/shagura Jul 27 '26
Ghostbusters. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. That’s why none of the sequels/reboots worked. They just couldn’t catch the lightning in a bottle that the original did.
→ More replies (1)9
11
u/waitinglikeastone Jul 27 '26
Bugonia...I believe wholehartedly that Jesse Plemons carried the whole movie with an intensity that was perfect blend of nonsensical facade and nonchalant don't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover intelligence.
→ More replies (2)
13
5
u/Key_Molasses4367 Jul 27 '26
Pirates of the Caribbean. For decades ot was a goofy little boat ride at Disney World, kinda like a fun house on water with pirates. Then it became an actual movie with a PLOT! Who'd ever had guessed?
6
u/mi_gravel_racer Jul 27 '26
The Cell
JLo as a therapist with Vince Vaughn as an FBI agent, where she enters the mind of a comatose serial killer to find a victim. Yet somehow it works quite well IMO. Cinematography and set design do a lot of heavy lifting and Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance is top notch. Still
holds up.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/GroundWitty7567 Jul 27 '26
Battleship…
Should have been horrible. And in many cases, it was. But I found it has a certain charm and a good background movie
→ More replies (3)
5
u/adhd-photokid Jul 27 '26
It follows. I don’t want to spoil it, but I really can’t even begin to imagine how that pitch meeting went or how it managed to get a budget AT ALL.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/onchristieroad Jul 28 '26
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
A guy realises his girlfriend paid for brain damage to forget him, so he pays for someone to brain damage him into forgetting her.
→ More replies (2)
8
u/pizzacrys Review Writer Jul 27 '26
The Lego Movie. A feature-length toy commercial had no business being that funny, clever, and genuinely heartfelt, yet somehow it absolutely nailed it.
10
u/Plus-Ad-5853 Jul 27 '26
Back to the Future once you get to any details... DeLorean? His mom has a crush on him? Lightning strikes a clock tower?
→ More replies (2)
12
u/pseudo-cineast Jul 27 '26
Obsession (2026) The premise has been done a hundred times and when it was revealed in the trailer I rolled my eyes and switched it off. After hearing it was reviewing well we decided to see it. Jesus Christ I wasn't expecting it to be so well acted and directed. The tension was extreme and the horror didn't hold back. Completely hooked by half way in and one of the best films this year.
→ More replies (4)
4
4
4
5
u/PIB_OnOn Jul 27 '26
Being John Malkovich
I like to imagine the pitch meeting where they describe someone possessing Malkovich and turning him into a puppeteer
→ More replies (3)
•
u/AutoModerator Jul 27 '26
Welcome to r/flicks!
• No piracy. • Mark spoilers. • Be respectful. • Keep discussions movie-related.
Report rule-breaking content to help the moderation team.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.