9. 21 Jump Street (2012)
Horrible Idea At The Time Because... Needless Comic Remake Of Obscure '80s TV Show I've got a feeling that even
21 Jump Street itself is shocked at how surprisingly well it came out in the end, given that it was based on a 20-year-old cult television show of which the general population had no real idea existed, not to mention the fact that it was being shoe-horned into a comedy vehicle for the likes of
Superbad fans. When you take all that into account, alongside the left-field casting of Channing Tatum, you've got what appears to be a recipe so well prepped for disaster that whoever made it up should have probably shot themselves in the head. And yet we somehow found ourselves staring into a movie that managed to be balls to the walls hilarious and candidly self-referential about its status as a "pointless remake" - it totally worked. This easily could have flopped had the writers failed to find the right tone, and bad word of mouth would have likely prevented it from making a killing at the box office. Even Jonah Hill admitted that he hated the idea at first, and he wrote the freakin' screenplay: "When they approached me to do it, I tend to roll my eyes like everybody else would." He certainly found a way to make it work.