20 Movies Way More Successful Than Anyone Expected
6. The Passion of the Christ
Even though Christian-themed movies have a tendency to perform well at the box office, The Passion of the Christ had so, so much working against it in theory.
For one, it was an ultra-violent, R-rated depiction of the events leading up to Jesus' (Jim Caviezel) death, and to make it even more unpalatable to the masses, it wasn't shot in English, with most of the dialogue instead being spoken in Aramaic.
But the appeal of a big-budget Jesus Movie combined with the plaudits of director Mel Gibson was evidently enough to overcome these obstacles.
Even so, few could've expected the $30 million epic biblical drama to end up grossing an astonishing $612.1 million - almost triple the box office haul of Gibson's Best Picture-winning previous film, Braveheart.
This figure also made it the highest-grossing Christian film, independent film, and R-rated film of all time.
Impressively it still holds the first two records - a testament to how successful a film can be when it delivers a powerful experience to a traditionally underserved demographic.