10 Movies That Wasted Brilliant Concepts

In 2008, Hancock seemed like a sure-fire box office hit, and given the relatively recent rise of cinematic superhero universes, its subversive story could have landed it with the label of a cult favourite. Alas, it was not meant to be, because whatever it had going for it was brutally crushed during production.

The film follows Will Smith's Hancock, an alcoholic would-be superhero with a serious image problem, haunting amnesia, and years of deeply hidden regret. Sounds great, until it was given the predictable PG-13 treatment that dampened its dark narrative and ridiculous humour.

What's more, the story itself falls apart at around the midway point, where it starts to introduce increasingly insane and unearned plot twists that ruin the core redemptive theme of the film in an ill-fated attempt to keep things fresh. Watching it's hard going, not because it's capital-B Bad, but because it had the potential to be so good.