10 Terrible Ideas That Became Great Movies

10. A Movie Based On... Lego - The Lego Movie

The moment that a movie based on... Lego was announced, many rolled their eyes and immediately dismissed it as a project doomed to be nothing more than a soulless 90-minute commercial for the plastic toy bricks.

Despite appearing to epitomise Hollywood's creative bankruptcy on paper, The Lego Movie had a secret weapon in-hand: filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

Lord and Miller took an inherently cynical concept and produced something startlingly creative, hilarious, and beautifully animated.

Thoroughly self-aware of its own torrid potential while gamely poking fun at the state of modern blockbusters, The Lego Movie was teeming with invention in every single scene.

The biggest surprise, though, was the risky live-action divergence in the third act, which only deepened the movie's very earnest, genuine love for toys and play.

To that end, Lord and Miller were able to have their cake and eat it too, producing a subversive, tongue-in-cheek animated adventure film that still worked as a giddy endorsement for its titular product. Everybody won, basically.