9 Movies That Studios Were Scared Of Releasing

One of the great things about movies is that there really is something for everyone.

If you want to shut your brain off and watch things explode for two hours, you can do just that. If you need cheering up and want a good laugh, you have hundreds of solid options to choose from. If you want to be challenged, inspired, or even scared, there are more than enough flicks available to feed those desires.

Studios also have a lot of options when it comes to the films they choose to greenlight, only, from their point of view, they're mainly thinking about commercial viability. Some movies are safe bets that are almost guaranteed to earn a positive reception, while others are more risky, projects that studios can be hesitant to send out into the world, or - in some extreme cases - be reluctant to make in the first place.

Maybe it's a movie with some controversial subject matter, an unproven lead actor, or, y'know, maybe the studio just hates the damn thing. Even faceless corporations feel fear sometimes, and these movies incited some genuine concerns on behalf of the studios who were putting up the cash to make them.

Alfonso Cuarón's tense space adventure was a huge box-office success in 2013, and went on to win several major Academy Awards shortly thereafter. However, in the earliest days of development, the studio was hesitant to proceed with the film because they thought that a female-led action movie would be a tough sell for audiences.

Seemingly forgetting that characters like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor had been kicking ass for decades, Warner Bros was concerned that Gravity would be a financial failure because it had a female lead, and according to THR, they wanted to give it a stripped-back budget as a result:

"...budget was on everyone's mind given that, historically, female-driven action films have been a hard sell."

The only thing that managed to somewhat dampen this fear of failure was the fact that Angelina Jolie was "loosely" attached to star. But when she dropped out, those studio worries resurfaced once again.

In fact, Warner Bros had persistent nerves about the film all the way up until Comic-Con 2013, just a few short months before it was due to release. During the convention, the film's opening sequence was screened, and received an incredibly enthusiastic response from those in attendance, calming studio fears in the process.