10 Movies In 2017 That Should Have Flopped (But Didn't)

4. Get Out

Box Office: $254.1 million

An acclaimed Sundance indie horror film starring an actor practically nobody knows (and a black actor at that, if we're being incredibly cynical about mainstream audiences), with a horror-satire premise that's sure to turn off "the casuals"? It's a dud waiting to happen, right?

Or so many thought. Without the might of the ultra-successful Blumhouse Productions, the $4.5 million Get Out could so easily have come and gone with just a few million bucks under its box office belt, but thanks to a fantastic marketing campaign which played-up the film's more conventional genre elements, Get Out scooped more than $250 million worldwide.

For perspective, Jordan Peele's universally-acclaimed film grossed more than 55-times its budget, making it easily the year's most successful release in terms of return-on-investment, all while Oscar buzz continues to swarm around it.

It's easy for film buffs to be cynical about intelligent, well-made movies of this kind reaching a wide audience, but by wrapping his message around an accessible genre effort, Peele has made an important movie that also found its way to the masses.