10 Terrible Ideas That Became Great Movies
4. A Stranded Man Befriends A Farting Corpse - Swiss Army Man
Generally speaking, first-time directors are advised to set their sights modestly and tackle a more familiar genre film before venturing into more ambitious territory on their sophomore feature.
But in their debut Swiss Army Man, filmmakers Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan decided to take a gigantic swing by making a movie about a man (Paul Dano) stranded on a desert island - so far so good - who befriends a flatulent corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) which washes up on the shore.
The potential for disaster speaks for itself here, but Scheinert and Kwan have such a firm handle on their movie's tone, and Dano and Radcliffe commit so fervently to their roles, that the film is able to wring unexpected profundity from a superficially crude premise.
And without its success, the Daniels almost certainly wouldn't have gone on to give the world the most recent Best Picture Oscar winner, Everything Everywhere All At Once - another borderline miracle of a movie that could've gone totally awry in different hands.
No matter what the Daniels make in the future, they've certainly got the benefit of the doubt at this point.