It's worth taking a chance sometimes! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for movie production decisions that were risky on a logistical, creative or financial level - but which ended up with critical and/or monetary success. Spoiler Alert!
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00:00 "You're all clear kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!"
00:02 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for movie production decisions
00:07 that were risky on a logistical, creative, or financial level,
00:11 but which ended up with critical and/or monetary success.
00:14 Spoiler alert!
00:15 "Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."
00:20 Number 10. John Travolta - Pulp Fiction
00:24 Prior to his appearance in Pulp Fiction,
00:26 John Travolta had a hugely successful movie career in the 70s in particular,
00:30 gaining wide recognition and fame in films like Saturday Night Fever and Grease.
00:35 "Tell me more, tell me more, did you get very far? Tell me more, tell me more, like there's the avocado!"
00:43 However, as the 1990s rolled around, Travolta's star had begun to fade,
00:47 and there were probably very few who would have ever thought of casting him as Vincent Vega.
00:52 Lucky for him, one of those people was not Quentin Tarantino.
00:55 "You gotta make some phone calls, you gotta call some people, well then do it!"
01:00 Tarantino had written the role for Michael Mattson,
01:03 but Tarantino had Travolta as a quote "strong, strong, strong" second choice.
01:08 And while Mattson might have been good, Travolta was great. He killed the role.
01:12 And Marvin was nominated for an Oscar and saw a complete rejuvenation of his career.
01:17 "What happened this morning, man, I agree, it was peculiar, but water into wine, I-"
01:22 "All shapes and sizes, Vincent."
01:24 Number 9. The Blair Witch Project
01:26 With the Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield series of films, for example,
01:30 the found footage niche was alive and well, and a bankable part of the horror genre.
01:34 But back in 1999, that was not quite the case.
01:37 "We're doing a documentary about the Blair Witch. Oh, have you heard of the Blair Witch?"
01:43 "Oh yeah, that's an old, old, old story."
01:46 In fact, when the Blair Witch Project hit theaters at the end of the previous century,
01:50 the genre was so new, there were actual debates online about whether or not
01:54 the footage was real and the movie was a documentary.
01:57 "That is so not cool, man."
01:58 "I know it's not cool."
01:59 "That is so not cool."
02:00 "I know it's not cool."
02:01 Doing something new is often a gamble. And in this case, the fresh creative path taken
02:06 with the Blair Witch Project paid off to the tune of a $250 million box office
02:11 against a total production budget of between $200,000 and $750,000.
02:16 "I'm gonna die out here."
02:18 Number 8. Daniel Craig as James Bond
02:20 "How did he know I was going to be there?"
02:22 Following the end of Daniel Craig's successful and acclaimed five-film run,
02:26 it might surprise some newer fans to learn how controversial his casting as 007 was at the time.
02:31 Although if you were around in the mid-aughts, it would have been hard to miss.
02:35 "Shame. We barely got to know each other."
02:38 "I know where you keep your gun."
02:47 "Suppose that's something."
02:48 Following the end of Pierce Brosnan's reign as Bond with Die Another Day in 2002,
02:53 the search began for a new super spy. And Craig's casting was met with anything but
02:58 universal approval from fans, with two major complaints being his height -- Craig is about
03:03 5'10" -- and his blonde hair.
03:05 "He knows who I am and where the money's coming from,
03:08 which means he's decided to play me anyway. So he's either desperate or he's overly confident,
03:12 but either way, that tells me something about him. And all it gets in return is a
03:16 name he already has." "And now he knows something about you.
03:20 He knows you're reckless."
03:21 Bond had always been taller and darker-haired, but the complaints about his physical appearance
03:26 sure stopped after he walked out of the ocean.
03:28 Number 7. Releasing Top Gun Maverick exclusively in theaters.
03:43 Top Gun Maverick was originally set to be released in June 2020.
03:47 "What is it? What?"
03:51 "We've been ordered to stand down. This crap in the program."
03:55 And had the pandemic never happened, it would have been. But the pandemic did happen,
04:00 and that changed everything. But not for Tom Cruise.
04:03 "It's a dogfight all the way home."
04:04 While COVID led to studios putting many previously theater-bound films onto various
04:08 streaming platforms, or at least releasing them day and date online, that was never an option for
04:14 Cruise. "It always ends the same with us, Pete. Let's not start this time."
04:20 "Okay."
04:25 Despite pressure from the studio and others, he refused. As he told Jimmy Kimmel,
04:30 quote, "I would have held out for 10 years." And when you're Tom Cruise, you have that kind of
04:34 power. In the end, it ended up being two years, not 10. And a whopping almost $1.5 billion box office.
04:41 Number 6. Heath Ledger cast as the Joker.
04:52 "Why so serious?"
04:54 With all due respect to Jack Nicholson, Joaquin Phoenix, and others, many fans think Heath
05:00 Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight is the greatest performance of said
05:04 villain in the history of both film and television. "What do you believe in?"
05:08 "I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you a stranger."
05:16 However, while Christopher Nolan was convinced from the beginning that Ledger was the man for
05:21 the job, many others were not as sure. And it wasn't just fans, either. The studio, as well
05:26 as Nolan's own brother and co-writer of the film, were equally skeptical about his choice. To say
05:31 the gamble paid off would be an understatement. "Those mob fools want you gone so they can get
05:36 back to the way things were. But I know the truth. There's no going back. You've changed things.
05:43 Forever." And the same can be said for another Batman casting decision almost 20 years earlier,
05:49 when comedic actor Michael Keaton was tapped to play the caped crusader.
05:53 "I want you to tell all your friends about me." "What are you?"
05:55 "I'm Batman." Number 5. Titanic. "You're flying, Jack."
06:02 They say hindsight is 20/20, and in the case of Titanic, hindsight is 2.2 billion, which is how
06:08 much money the movie made initially at the box office on its way to becoming the highest-grossing
06:12 film ever at the time. "I'm the king of the world!"
06:19 But while it might seem like an obvious hit now, Titanic was a huge gamble back in the mid-'90s,
06:24 a gamble that had executives at Fox looking for help. "All life is a game of luck."
06:29 "A real man makes his own luck, Archie." They got that help when they sold Paramount
06:34 the American distribution rights for $65 million, a venture that paid off tenfold for them when the
06:40 movie grossed over $650 million in North America. And then, of course, there were all the Oscars.
06:46 "Promise me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise. I promise. Never let go."
06:59 Number 4. Adapting the Harry Potter book series. While the ginormous success of the Harry Potter
07:05 books made the film's development rather obvious, its success wasn't always guaranteed.
07:10 "Difficult, very difficult." Especially once Steven Spielberg turned down the opportunity to
07:17 direct the first film, and Chris Columbus was announced as the man who would bring
07:20 the Potterverse to the big screen. "That's right. Now, if you two don't mind, I'm going to bed
07:26 before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed, or worse, expelled."
07:32 Sure, Home Alone, for example, was a fun and a bit edgy movie, "I gotcha! I got him, Harry!"
07:37 but didn't quite have the full breadth of darkness that is part of the Harry Potter epic.
07:41 Then there was also the fact that the child actors were pretty much all unknown newcomers.
07:46 But eight movies and almost $8 billion later, we'd say the gamble paid off.
07:51 "What?" "You heard. Right, come on now, I'm a bit preoccupied today."
07:56 Number 3. Star Wars. Say what you will about the new Star Wars movies they've been putting
08:01 out for the last few decades, but there's no denying the marketing muscle behind them.
08:05 "That lightsaber was Luke's and his father's before him, and now it calls to you."
08:13 When there's a new Star Wars movie, you definitely know about it. Now, let's go back to 1977 and the
08:19 release of the first movie by 20th Century Fox, retroactively officially known as Star Wars Episode
08:25 4 A New Hope. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a member of the Imperial Senate on a
08:30 diplomatic mission to Alderaan." "You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take her away!"
08:35 While the film became the highest grossing movie up to that point, those big numbers were not
08:40 expected by the studio, so much so that they didn't provide much promotional support other
08:44 than some posters and t-shirts. Although, knowing what we know now, to paraphrase Darth Vader,
08:50 we find their lack of faith disturbing. "Enough of this. Vader, release him." "As you wish."
08:56 Number 2. Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Animated movies, especially Disney ones,
09:02 were a huge part of our collective childhood and remain a part of many of our adulthoods as well.
09:07 "Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" But while the idea of full-length
09:14 animated films makes complete sense to today's audiences, back in the 1930s it was anything but
09:20 obvious. Well, except to Mr. Disney himself, who told his animators they were going to make a full
09:27 length Snow White film. Up until then, the studio had been making only short movies, and there were
09:38 many who predicted this attempt would fail miserably. But Walt went ahead and made half
09:42 the movie to show it to the president of Bank of America, who, following the screening, agreed to
09:47 loan him $250,000. Adjusted for inflation, the movie grossed over $1 billion.
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10:16 Number 1. The MCU. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a juggernaut,
10:23 and since it began in 2008, has become the highest-grossing media franchise ever.
10:28 "Avengers! Assemble."
10:36 But let's go back to 2008 for a moment and recognize how big a gamble the whole thing was.
10:40 We all love Iron Man now, but at the time, he was a somewhat lesser-known character and a not-so-obvious
10:46 choice to launch a cinematic universe. "Jarvis, sometimes you gotta run before you can walk.
10:52 Ready? In three, two, one." Then there was hiring director Jon Favreau,
10:59 whose previous directorial effort was Zathura. And let's not forget about Robert Downey Jr.
11:04 A great actor, for sure, but a guy whose list of personal and legal issues in the '90s had
11:09 made him literally uninsurable. Executives were not sold on him, but Favreau put his foot down
11:15 for RDJ. "The truth is, I am Iron Man."
11:24 Which of these gambles would you have put your money on? Let us know in the comments.
11:30 "Yeah, I'm gonna go all in, 'cause I don't think you got the space."
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