10 Iconic Movies That Were Initially Critical Flops
5. The Shining
Based on Stephen King's beloved novel featuring a family stranded at a terrifying hotel and the father's descent into madness, Stanley Kubrick's cinematic version is no seen as one of the greatest horror movies of all time
But far from how it tends to be viewed today, in 1980 there wasn't necessarily a consensus on what was wrong with the movie, but there was definitely something very wrong.
Some critics found it to be over-the-top, others found it to be a bore. The performances of Nicholson and Duvall were also frequently maligned and overall the movie was portrayed as a lackluster adaptation of its source material.
Obviously, time has changed the narrative drastically and everyone now agrees that those early reviews were comically off-base.