20 HUGE Hit Movies NOBODY Saw Coming

18. Alice in Wonderland

While it's fair to say that 2010's Alice in Wonderland released at basically the peak of Tim Burton's commercial powers, few still could've anticipated quite how far his kaleidoscopic blockbuster would go.

If the $200 million tentpole grossed $500 million worldwide, that would've seemed like a fairly solid result and topped Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to become his highest-grossing film ever.

But Alice in Wonderland was an absolute juggernaut in its first month on release, aided significantly by the success of Avatar a few months prior which helped popularise 3D presentation of splashy event films such as this.

By the end of its run, Alice in Wonderland grossed a ridiculous $1.025 billion, making it Burton's most successful film by a margin of more than a half-billion dollars.

And yet, 2016's sans-Burton sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass, suffered one of the most catastrophic sequel drops in Hollywood history, failing to crack even $300 million.