10 Movies That Felt Instantly Out Of Date
5. The Little Things
Despite starring three Oscar winners in Denzel Washington, Jared Leto, and Rami Malek, The Little Things came and went in 2021 without much of a peep, and it can't solely be blamed on Warner Bros.' decision to send it to HBO Max the very same day it hit cinemas.
One common sentiment among reviews was that this crime thriller felt like a straight-faced throwback to the 1990s, where modest thrillers about serial killers routinely made bank at the box office off the back of their lead actors.
As such, it's little surprise to learn that writer-director John Lee Hancock penned the first draft of the script way back in 1993, shortly after The Silence of the Lambs' astronomical success prompted everyone in Hollywood to get to work on their own copycat projects.
Though Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, and Danny DeVito all considered directing at various points, it ultimately fell to Hancock himself to resurrect the project almost 30 years later and get it made.
It's certainly not a bad movie, all things considered, though one that just fails to stand out in an era where commanding audience interest is more challenging than ever, and star power has never meant less to the general moviegoer.
If you saw The Little Things airing on cable while channel-surfing in 1998, though, you probably would've kept watching it.