10 Recent Movies NOBODY Expected To Be Good

Elemental is a film that arrived on a wave of negative-hype pre-release, with its utterly lackluster trailers suggesting a strangely generic, by-the-numbers animated romp from Pixar.

And while it certainly doesn't rank among their very finest work, this is far from the Cars 2-level disaster many were expecting - Elemental is a gorgeously animated, totally rock solid, middle-tier offering from the studio.

In a year where so much of Disney's output has fallen disappointingly flat, Elemental was actually one of their few wins, bolstered by its affecting, family-focused narrative and outstanding ensemble voice cast.

The fact that nobody expected it to be any good is perhaps best reflected, however, in its shockingly leggy box office performance.

After opening below projections in its first weekend on release, positive word-of-mouth - including an "A" CinemaScore - led it to gross almost $500 million worldwide.

Though not one of Pixar's biggest hits or best movies, that's quite the turnaround for a film many had written off as a catastrophic bomb after its opening weekend.