17 Awesome Movie Concepts That Were Totally Botched

2. In Time

The Pitch: In a dystopian future, humans stop ageing at 25, after which a clock starts counting down how much time they have left to live, which becomes the "currency" which people can replenish through work.

What Happened?: There are some fantastic ideas in Andrew Niccol's (Gattaca) movie, but its musings on class and mortality are ultimately lost amid a fairly generic sci-fi treatment, with too many competing ideas, a disappointing lack of character development and an hilariously unsubtle "capitalism is bad" message.

Had the film slowed down to examine how this system would change society, it could've been a cult classic. Instead, it's almost always the first film mentioned when people discuss awesome movie pitches with a bungled execution.