10 Movies Everyone Thought Were DOOMED (But Became Massive Hits)

A long time ago in a galaxy not that far away, George Lucas set out to make a film that very few thought folks would pay to see.

No, we're not talking about Star Wars. 

Before the creator of that galaxy far, far away struggled to convince studios to finance that Jedi adventure, he found himself in a similar situation with a little project by the name of American Graffiti.

Originally, United Artists would pay Lucas to develop the script for the coming-of-age, car-stuffed dramedy set in the '60s, but the studio would then pass on it. With Lucas deciding to boldly use many a rock n' roll song for the film - instead of a traditional score - UA eventually felt it had become simply "a musical montage with no characters".

From here, the likes of Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, 20th Century Fox, and more all turned down the opportunity to distribute and co-finance the project, too, with all of these studios evidently thinking Lucas' nostalgic movie was destined to be a failure.

Universal ultimately decided it was worth a go, though, allowing Lucas full creative control over the low-budget tale. The film that nobody thought would do much business ended up earning a staggering $140 million on a $700,000 budget, established Lucas as one of the hottest directors in the land, and scored a number of Oscar nods. Not bad at all.