20 Movies That Took HUGE Risks (And NAILED It)

2. Combining Live-Action & Animation - Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Though Who Framed Roger Rabbit wasn't the first film to combine animation with live-action filmmaking, it was the first to do it in such a comprehensive, technically complex, and downright expensive way.

Director Robert Zemeckis and executive producer Steven Spielberg insisted that the film's animated characters interact with the physical environments in a tactile way, requiring robotic arms and string to manipulate props in their absence, before the animation was composited in later.

In 1988, years before CGI became the norm and such wizardry became comparatively trivial, it was a massive gamble, and one which took seven months to shoot at a cost of over $50 million.

But Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a massive critical and commercial success, even winning a Special Achievement Academy Award for its animation direction. 

And best of all, it still looks absolutely incredible today - a testament to the ingenious techniques Zemeckis and his crew employed to bring their madcap vision to life.