10 Mega-Successful Blockbusters Everyone Expected To Fail

9. Inception

There's a reason the majority of big budget movies all tend to be sequels, remakes or in some other way related to an existing property. To the studios movies are an investment, so naturally they'll stake their hundreds of millions of dollars on a safe bet. And, unfortunately, audiences do tend to gravitate towards existing franchises. How else do you explain Pacific Rim only just breaking even while Godzilla sits on a nice cushion of profit? Following The Dark Knight's massive success in all corners, Warner Bros. decided to do something rather surprising. Christopher Nolan had provided them with one mega-hit and a couple of nicely profitable diversions (The Prestige and Batman Begins both did relatively respectable numbers), so they rewarded him with a $160 million budget and total free reign to make his long gestating passion project, the dream-bending Inception. With a director with the track record of Nolan (quieten down Dark Knight Rises haters) nobody expected Inception to flat-out suck, although there was a chance it could fall into self indulgence like the later films of other big name directions (Jackson's King Kong, Lucas' prequels, Burton's Alice In Wonderland). But even if the film was a home run (it was), there was still the massive question of box office success. Clearly the quality of the film drew people back for more, although when the film raked in of $800 million you can bet even Warner were surprised.