10 More Huge Box Office Hits NOBODY Saw Coming

10. District 9

Before his little project by the name of District 9 invaded movie theatres in 2009, you would have struggled to find many out there who'd heard of the name Neill Blomkamp.

Outside of working as a VFX artist and 3D animator on the likes of Stargate SG-1 and Dark Angel, the South African-Canadian creator had also directed the Halo: Landfall short film project in 2007 that was used to hype up the incoming Halo 3 game.

When a planned Blomkamp-directed Halo movie fell through, though, that film's producer, The Lord of the Ring's Peter Jackson, opted to turn his attention to one of the director's other pieces of work for a potential new project. And while you'd think that a big-screen adaptation of Blomkamp's 2005 short film Alive in Joberg would probably struggle to bring in an audience quite as big as a movie based on one of the most popular video games of the time in 2009, you'd be wrong.

Following on from a brilliant viral marketing campaign, this $30 million-budgeted story of an alien race arriving on Earth - which also masterfully explores themes of racism and xenophobia - went on to bring in a staggering $210 million at the box office.

A low-budget sci-fi film this bold, being led by the unknown that was the terrific Sharlto Copley and directed by the relatively inexperienced Blomkamp, not only making a massive profit, but also scooping up an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture was not on anyone's movie bingo card coming into 2009.