10 Films You Didn't Realise Secretly Bombed

We know what you're thinking: there is no way that The Greatest Showman bombed. We all remember having to endure the non-stop hype train that was this movie's rabid fanbase in 2018. It was everywhere, and it was inescapable.

The thing is, The Greatest Showman did bomb at the box office... for about six weeks.

Usually, you can judge a film's financial success based on how much it makes in its first week. This makes sense: people will see a movie while it's new, and depending on how much they enjoyed it, they may recommend it to their friends or even see it again. If nobody goes to see it in that first week, however, there is nobody to spread that precious word-of-mouth.

The Greatest Showman did not do well in its first week, or its second, or its third. It had already been written off as one of the biggest flops in movie musical history, when something unprecedented happened: after fifty-five days of bleeding money, it shot up to number one in the box office. The earnings only grew from there, and what we thought was a flop grew into a behemoth blockbuster.

There's only one explanation: musical fans are crazy. People went to see this movie time and time again, and screenings transformed from little groups having a pleasant time to packed-out sing-a-long parties.

WhatCulture's small population of musical lovers were hoping the same thing might happen for the criminally underrated Cats, but alas, it seems this was a once-off phenomenon.