10 Recent Movies That Never Should've Worked (But Did)
These movies all worked against MASSIVE odds.
Making any movie, no matter how it turns out, is like shoving a boulder up a hill, and making a movie that's actually good? It's truly nothing short of a miracle.
On paper, it goes without saying that each of the following ten movies categorically shouldn't have worked at all. Perhaps they were an ultra-belated sequel coming way too many decades after the fact, a horror remake that controversially deviated from the source material, or a film so bold it struggled to receive a conventional release altogether.
For one reason or another, these movies all seemed destined to fail, whether critically, commercially, or even both. But each of these films loudly proved the skeptics wrong, turning in an impressively sturdy end product that also happened to make a dent with general audiences.
Thanks to expectation-defying filmmaking and committed performances, they all rose above the stink of potential failure and spun low expectations into genuine surprise that things turned out quite this well. The lesson here? Just because a movie seems like it's on a collision course with failure, that doesn't quite make it so. No matter how doomed a film might seem, there's always the possibility of success...
10. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
The track record of belated comedy sequels speaks for itself, and so why would anyone think a 35-years-in-the-making Beetlejuice follow-up could ever be any good? Plus, given the generally lackluster quality of director Tim Burton's output over the last 15 years, would his heart really be in it so long after the fact?
The answer, shockingly, was a resounding "yes," for while Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is certainly a mess in the storytelling department, it succeeds largely on the strength of its charm, its visual creativity - defined largely by practical sets and effects - and the game performances of its ensemble cast, especially a terrific Michael Keaton.
Given the tendency for legacy sequels to look back over their shoulder at what came before with a dew-eyed sentimentality, it was enormously refreshing that Beetlejuice 2 forewent this in favour of another wacky, delightfully unhinged comedy-horror romp that absolutely lived up to its beloved predecessor.
And as if that wasn't a good enough outcome, it even turned a hefty profit at the box office, having easily tripled its budget already.