5. Star Wars (1977)
Horrible Idea At The Time Because... Sci-Fi Fantasy Wasn't Deemed Profitable/Insane Idea
Star Wars is the reason every child born before the year 1990 still runs around making a "ffffssss" sound whilst wielding an imaginary lightsword, and although (to most of us)
Star Wars seems like the most amazing slice of bonafide genius to have ever been put onto big screen, when you look back at its inception, you begin to release how horrible an idea it was at the time - in the marketing, public interest and all-round crazy sense, of course. There was so little hype associated with the movie, in fact, that even its creator thought it was going to be a flop. Which says a lot about expectations: even ol' George had resigned himself to the fact that he was making something that nobody wanted to see. In fact, Lucas wasn't even really into the whole
Star Wars thing - he wanted to adapt
Flash Gordon, and did this instead when it turned out the rights were taken. After a hellish shoot in which nobody gave a sh*t about what they were doing, theatres boycotted the movie because "sci-fi fantasy" wasn't considered a workable genre. But it turns out we all really like things that are insane, and the rest - as you know - is history.