17 Awesome Movie Concepts That Were Totally Botched

5. Downsizing

The Pitch: Writer-director Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) tackles his most ambitious project yet, a dramedy in which a couple (Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig) decide to shrink themselves in order to escape their financial burdens.

What Happened?: Though Downsizing has a highly entertaining first act, it quickly goes headlong off a cliff after this, with Payne failing to make the most of his central gimmick, instead splintering off to explore a tedious and ill-fitting political subplot.

It's a film with far too many ideas and nowhere near enough discipline to execute any of them well. It feel like a first draft script that needed to be hammered into shape, and represents an incredibly rare fail for the acclaimed filmmaker.

Matt Damon was clearly game, but as with his other thud last year - the George Clooney-directed Suburbicon - he deserved better.