20 Movies That Took HUGE Risks (And NAILED It)
These movies worked against MASSIVE odds.
Filmmaking is nothing if not an enterprise inherently fraught with risk - studios pay tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars to directors with the hope of getting a sizable return on their investment.
And often of course that isn't what happens - the roll of the dice frequently doesn't pay off and the bigwigs are left footing the bill.
But there are also those times where a massive gamble ends up paying dividends, whether creatively, commercially, or best of all both.
And that's absolutely true of these 20 movies, each of which refused to do the most basic, safe thing and instead took big risks which could've so easily fallen flat.
Yet guided by seasoned filmmakers with their stellar cast and crew, these movies all weathered the storm and managed to deliver above and beyond what anyone could've reasonably anticipated.
Each of these movies dared to dream bigger, took a massive swing, and actually made it work against tremendous odds.
While you can't blame most filmmakers for sticking to what traditionally works, what would the art form be without mavericks pushing the envelope?...
20. No Harrison Ford Until The Third Act - Blade Runner 2049
Even though the marketing for Blade Runner 2049 made it clear that Harrison Ford would only be reprising his role of Deckard in a supporting capacity, it was still expected that he'd appear early and often throughout the belated sci-fi sequel.
But ultimately Ford doesn't show his face for 105 minutes, roughly two-thirds of the way through the film's runtime, when protagonist K (Ryan Gosling) finally tracks him down in the ruins of Las Vegas.
And yet, the film is so engrossing up to this point, and the third act serves as such a fitting capper to Deckard's story, that it's tough to begrudge the decision at all.
Compare this to Star Wars: The Force Awakens - another legacy sequel released around the same time which spent so much time hyping up Mark Hamill's return as Luke Skywalker, only for many to be left disappointed by his seconds-long role in the film.
Here, Ford was featured more explicitly in Blade Runner 2049's marketing, and yet while his part was also smaller than expected, it didn't seem like a cynical, calculated choice in the slightest, but simply what made the most story sense.
That Villeneuve delivered a sequel which arguably outdid the classic original even while confining the central character to the third act is a frankly staggering achievement.