10 Box Office Hits That Everybody Expected To Be Huge Flops
9. Maleficent
Brad Pitt's mad dash around the globe to promote World War Z was probably helped in no small part by having his wife Angelina Jolie hanging off his arm. A year after World War Z's unexpected success Jolie would find herself facing similarly bleak predictions regarding her upcoming Disney movie, Maleficent. One Wall Street analyst believed that Maleficent was going to be too dark and scary to appeal to its target audience, with RBC Capitals David Bank penciling in a total US haul of $150 million against a budget of $180 million - hardly words to inspire confidence in even the most optimistic of people. Mixed reviews upon its release certainly didn't affect the surprising turnaround in Maleficent's fortunes - with $758 million worldwide at the box office, Disney's gamble paid off and became the fourth highest grossing movie of 2014 - and Jolie's highest grossing film of all time.
