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These movies were surprise hits beyond anyone's wildest predictions.
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00:00We as moviegoers have a tendency to think that we can peg a smash hit or a disastrous flop from
00:06a mile away.
00:07But there are also those fascinating times when a film ends up blowing past all but the most optimistic of
00:13expectations.
00:14For one of many reasons, these films all surged in popularity in ways nobody could have ever anticipated.
00:21Enough that many of them remain bewildering outliers to this very day.
00:24So with that in mind, I'm Ellie for WhatCulture and let's take a look at some movies way more successful
00:30than anyone expected.
00:32Starting with John Wick.
00:34It's no exaggeration to say that expectations were through the floor for John Wick prior to its release.
00:40Given that Keanu Reeves was well and truly in the middle of his flop era by 2014,
00:46having him star in a revenge film about a dead dog didn't exactly inspire much confidence.
00:51It also didn't help that the film was helmed by first-time stuntman-turned-filmmaker Chad Stahelski.
00:57And Lionsgate's marketing was so low-key that they seemed almost embarrassed by it.
01:02Hell, we even included John Wick on our own list of films which might score 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
01:09And as silly as that seems in retrospect, Reeves' straights were dire enough at that point that it was a
01:14totally reasonable prediction.
01:16But John Wick was one of 2014's most unexpected hits, grossing a tidy $86 million on a $30 million budget,
01:25boosted by strong reviews for the film's kinetic action, smart world-building, and Reeves' entertainingly stoic performance.
01:32The rest, as they say, is history.
01:34Across four main movies and a recent spin-off, the John Wick IP has grossed $1.16 billion worldwide.
01:41Who could have ever predicted that from a film which, in the eyes of many, looked like VOD action fodder
01:47at first glance?
01:49K-pop Demon Hunters
01:50And now for the most recent entry on this list, albeit a film whose enormous success can't be measured by
01:57box office bucks.
01:59Animated musical fantasy K-pop Demon Hunters was originally produced by Sony,
02:03who ultimately decided to sell the distribution rights to Netflix for a direct-to-streaming release with a minimal theatrical
02:10engagement.
02:11And within two months of its release on the streaming platform,
02:14the film had surpassed Red Notice as the most-watched Netflix original of all time.
02:19And it later overtook TV series Squid Game as Netflix's most-watched title ever.
02:24As of mid-September, K-pop Demon Hunters has racked up more than 300 million views,
02:30a practically unthinkable number when the film released back in June,
02:34even accepting the enormous popularity of both animation and Korean media on Netflix.
02:39The mesmerising viewership gave Sony a moment for pause,
02:42for while Netflix reportedly paid them the film's entire $100 million budget,
02:47they couldn't help but wonder if a theatrical release would have been the more profitable call.
02:51After all, despite being readily available on Netflix,
02:54the film's brief theatrical release in sing-along form grossed $19.2 million,
02:59making it the streamer's best-performing theatrical film,
03:02beating out Glass Onion, A Knives Out Story.
03:05Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl
03:08In the months leading up to its release,
03:10few had high expectations for Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl.
03:14Believe it or not, swashbuckling adventure films were pretty much dead at the box office by the turn of the
03:20millennium.
03:20And it didn't help that this one was also based on a Disney theme park ride,
03:24hardly the most imaginative of things.
03:26And then there's the Johnny Depp factor.
03:28Depp simply hadn't proven himself to be a reliably bankable star by this point,
03:33despite his general popularity.
03:35And it was certainly not a given that he could help drive the $140 million blockbuster to success.
03:41But Pirates of the Caribbean basically did everything right.
03:44It was a fun, well-made movie with a genuinely electrifying lead performance,
03:49released in an uncrowded period of the release calendar,
03:52giving it an easy corridor to keep raking in that dough.
03:55By the end of its run, the film beliterated even optimistic expectations by grossing $654.3 million.
04:03And perhaps even more unexpectedly,
04:06nabbed Depp his first Best Actor Oscar nomination.
04:09Slumdog Millionaire
04:10Little ahead of Slumdog Millionaire's release indicated that it would be a sizable hit.
04:16This low-budget, India-set drama with no Hollywood actors based on niche source material invited low expectations from its
04:24original distributor Warner Brothers.
04:26Enough that they intended to release it straight to video in the US.
04:30But mere days before its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival,
04:35the studio agreed to share theatrical distribution with Fox Searchlight.
04:38And a fire was well and truly lit once the film won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International
04:45Film Festival,
04:46typically an indicator a film will be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
04:49From here, Danny Boyle's $15 million film went on to gross a stupendous $378 million,
04:56almost as much as all of Boyle's seven prior films combined.
05:00But that wasn't all.
05:01It was then nominated for 10 Oscars, of which it won 8, including Best Picture and Best Director.
05:07Needless to say, everyone involved is probably relieved that Warner Brothers didn't send it direct to DVD domestically.
05:14Avatar
05:14Avatar basically offered up the final word on anyone who ever had the gall to doubt James Cameron.
05:21Despite the filmmaker's previous film, Titanic, breaking box office records following considerable pre-release skepticism,
05:28we all did the same song and dance for his 2009 sci-fi action film.
05:32Many commentators doubted the ability for Cameron to deliver another smash hit,
05:37due to the ambition of its CGI-heavy execution,
05:40and also the apparently unappealing nature of the Na'vi,
05:42which some refer to as, quote,
05:44blue cat people.
05:45But of course, Cameron did it again!
05:47And because delivering a box office success wasn't enough,
05:49he ended up surpassing even the monstrous performance of Titanic.
05:53By the end of its original run, Avatar grossed an inconceivable $2.74 billion,
05:59almost a billion more than Titanic made on its initial release,
06:03in turn making it the highest-grossing film of all time.
06:06Though it was unseated from the number one spot by Avengers Endgame in 2019,
06:11Avatar decisively reclaimed it two years later with a re-release to coincide with sequel Avatar The Way of Water,
06:18which itself raked in an astonishing $2.32 billion.
06:21Now, it'll certainly be interesting to see if Cameron can deliver yet another $2 billion grosser
06:27with upcoming threequel Avatar Fire and Ash.
06:30But even if not, it's clearly going to make a sizable return on its $250 million budget.
06:36The Full Monty
06:36Underdog success stories don't get much more heartwarming than The Full Monty,
06:41a $3.5 million comedic drama about male strippers set in Sheffield without major stars
06:47that became a global mega hit.
06:50Even with the film's apparently limited appeal outside of the UK,
06:54it managed to strike one hell of a chord the world over,
06:57ultimately grossing an incredible $257.9 million
07:01and becoming the UK's highest-grossing film of all time,
07:05until being unseated by Titanic a short while later.
07:08This can be attributed to a few factors.
07:10The film's obvious novelty appeal,
07:11a cheeky and amusing marketing campaign,
07:14and strong word of mouth driven by its winning combination of comedy and heartfelt drama.
07:19More than all this though,
07:20The Full Monty was also nominated for four Oscars,
07:23including Best Picture and Best Director,
07:26while winning a gong for Best Original Score.
07:28Considering the film's modest conception,
07:30and how easily it could have slipped through the cracks with a lesser distributor,
07:34that's an overperformance for the ages.
07:37The Greatest Showman
07:38The Greatest Showman is one of the all-time great reminders
07:42that a film's opening weekend isn't everything.
07:45The Hugh Jackman-starring musical biopic opened under expectations,
07:49and with stiff competition from Star Wars The Last Jedi,
07:52Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle,
07:54and Pitch Perfect 3,
07:55many doubted its ability to leg out over the 2017 holiday period.
08:00But boosted by strong word of mouth,
08:02including an A cinema score,
08:04and the wider popularity of the film's soundtrack,
08:07it managed to hold incredibly well in subsequent weeks,
08:10ultimately legging out to a mighty $459 million worldwide.
08:15Given that many wrote the $84 million musical off after its first weekend,
08:19that's an exceptional result,
08:21and combined with the immense sales of the soundtrack,
08:23make it a massive hit far beyond most expectations.
08:27While The Greatest Showman is in many respects a box office anomaly,
08:31it does prove that films can initially underperform,
08:34and still find their audience when the stars align.
08:37Austin Powers' The Spy Who Shagged Me
08:39Though Austin Powers' International Man of Mystery was a firm success,
08:44making $67.7 million against an $18 million budget,
08:48it was by no means a barnstorming breakout.
08:51While many attributed the film's underwhelming UK performance
08:54to the death of Princess Diana five days prior,
08:57few expected sequel Austin Powers' The Spy Who Shagged Me
09:00to blow up quite how it did.
09:02Even accepting that the first film performed extremely well on home video,
09:06nobody saw the sequel's final $312 million haul coming,
09:10more than 4.5 times the global gross of its predecessor.
09:14Now, to be clear,
09:15the second film's opening weekend surpassed the total gross of the original,
09:19and made it the biggest opening ever for a comedy film at the time.
09:23Austin Powers had well and truly become a pop culture icon then,
09:26and while 3.4 Austin Powers' In Gold Member didn't quite match this level of success,
09:31it still made off with a strong $296.9 million.
09:35Mike Myers has consistently talked up the prospect of a fourth film,
09:39though it's tough to imagine it enjoying the same level of success,
09:42no matter its quality.
09:44Taylor Swift The Era's Tour
09:45Even accepting that Taylor Swift is a peerlessly populated pop star,
09:50concert films inherently have a low ceiling placed on their box office potential.
09:55For one, they're only going to appeal to the particular fanbase in question,
09:58with little chance of a wider breakout.
10:00And there are simply many who have no interest in watching a concert in a cinema.
10:04Even accepting that social media chatter indicated Taylor Swift The Era's Tour
10:08would be an easy hit from its $15 million budget,
10:12few anticipated the numbers it would end up pulling.
10:14Astonishingly, the film earned $100 million in global pre-sales a week before release,
10:20and went on to make a total of $267.1 million worldwide.
10:25This not only made it by far the highest grossing concert film of all time,
10:29almost tripling the $99 million grossed by 2011's Justin Bieber Never Say Never,
10:34but saw it outperform the likes of The Marvels, Dungeons & Dragons,
10:39Honor Among Thieves, The Equalizer 3, Insidious The Red Door,
10:42Scream 6, and Killers of the Flower Moon.
10:45This performance is certainly an outlier that speaks to Swift's omnipresence in pop culture.
10:50But it goes without saying that if she ever releases a second concert film,
10:54such success won't be nearly as surprising.
10:57Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle
10:58Prior to its release, the deck really seemed stacked against Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle.
11:04For one, many were against the idea of a new Jumanji movie at all,
11:08following the tragic 2014 passing of Robin Williams.
11:12And a cast led by Jack Black, Dwayne Johnson, and Kevin Hart didn't win too many over.
11:17Then there was the utterly mediocre marketing,
11:19which made it look like just another generic jungle-set action film starring The Rock.
11:24And the fact that it was due to release just five days after Star Wars The Last Jedi,
11:28a move many called commercial suicide.
11:30But Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle received unexpectedly positive reviews
11:34for its fun body swap gimmick and the performances of its four leads.
11:39And more surprisingly, managed to blow past box office tracking
11:41by grossing $962.5 million against a $90 million price tag.
11:47This mammoth performance has been heavily attributed
11:50to the polarising audience response to The Last Jedi,
11:53which as a result had less return business from audiences,
11:56prompting many of them to check out Jumanji instead during the holiday period.
12:01Though sequel Jumanji The Next Level didn't reach quite the same heights,
12:05it still topped out at a very respectable $801.7 million,
12:09while a third film is expected to start shooting in November for a December 2026 release.
12:15For a film many pegged as a big fat flop right out of the gate,
12:19what an outcome!
12:20The Rocky Horror Picture Show
12:22The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of the most popular cinematic musicals of all time.
12:28But nobody could have expected it to endure for over a half century
12:31when it released so modestly in 1975.
12:35The $1.4 million film grossed only $1.2 million in its first year on release.
12:40But recognising its small but passionate fandom,
12:43Fox re-released it as a midnight movie,
12:46with audiences invited to dress up and participate in the experience
12:49through singing and dancing.
12:51This strange decision ultimately paid off handsomely,
12:54as word about the movie spread and its theatrical release continued for years.
12:59By 1980, the Rocky Horror Picture Show had grossed $68.6 million worldwide,
13:03and even as of 2025, it's still screening as a limited release,
13:08making it the longest-running theatrical release in cinema history.
13:12At present, its box office total sits at a ridiculous $166 million,
13:16and the film remains a genuine pop culture phenomenon,
13:20with annual conventions around the globe.
13:22At this point, would it honestly surprise anyone
13:25if Rocky Horror's theatrical run made it to the 100-year mark?
13:28Five Nights at Freddy's
13:30While anyone with their eyes open knew that Blumhouse's low-budget adaptation
13:35of hit video game Five Nights at Freddy's was going to be an easy success,
13:39few saw it doing quite this well considering the circumstances of its release.
13:43Even though the video game series has millions and millions of young fans,
13:48Universal made the surprise decision to simultaneously release the film
13:52in cinemas and on their US streaming service Peacock.
13:55It was therefore assumed that the day-and-date streaming release
13:58would put a massive dent in the film's box office,
14:01because why would people leave the house to see it in droves
14:04when they could just stay home and watch it instead?
14:06But Five Nights at Freddy's still ended up grossing a stupid good $297.1 million
14:13on a $20 million budget,
14:15enough that many wondered just how well it could have done
14:17with a theatrical-only release.
14:19Given that Five Nights at Freddy's 2 will be a cinema-exclusive release in December,
14:24it'll certainly be interesting to see if it can surpass its predecessor's total.
14:28My Big Fat Greek Wedding
14:30A hundred years from now, when all of us are dust,
14:33box office analysts will still be trying to make sense
14:36of My Big Fat Greek Wedding's absolutely insane theatrical performance.
14:41Not a single living soul expected a $5 million rom-com
14:45about Greek-American culture starring a totally unknown lead actress
14:49to crack the 10 highest-grossing films of 2002.
14:52And yet, it did precisely that.
14:54Though it initially had a limited release,
14:57overwhelmingly positive word-of-mouth saw its theatrical run expand slowly over time.
15:02And it impressively kept drumming up enough business for IFC films
15:06to keep it in cinemas for the better part of a year.
15:08By the end of its run,
15:09My Big Fat Greek Wedding grossed an unimaginable $368.7 million globally,
15:16putting it ahead of much buzzier and more expensive 2002 releases
15:20like Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, Chicago, and Gangs of New York.
15:24It's a feat that's even more jaw-dropping
15:26when you consider that the film never once took the number one spot,
15:30despite lingering around in cinemas for so long.
15:33Everything Everywhere All At Once
15:35Everything Everywhere All At Once
15:37is one of the most joyous success stories of the last decade.
15:41That such a profoundly weird movie
15:43could not only be a commercial smash hit,
15:46but also win the biggest honour in Hollywood.
15:48The Daniels' absurdist comedy-drama
15:50could have so easily sunk like a stone at the box office.
15:53Like their first film, Swiss Army Man,
15:56which grossed just $5.8 million globally.
15:58But bolstered by rave reviews and Oscar buzz,
16:01it ended up legging out to a phenomenal $143.4 million
16:05against a tight $25 million budget,
16:09making it A24's highest-grossing film to date.
16:12And because that wasn't enough of a win
16:14for such a strange piece of work,
16:15it was also nominated for 11 Oscars,
16:18ultimately winning seven, including Best Picture.
16:21It is, without any question at all,
16:24the most successful film in the history of cinema
16:26to feature a dildo fight.
16:28It's incredibly easy to picture an alternate scenario
16:30where Everything Everywhere All At Once
16:32flops at the box office, gets no awards attention,
16:35and only becomes a lauded cult classic over time.
16:38The Passion of the Christ
16:39Even though Christian-themed movies
16:42have a tendency to perform well at the box office,
16:45The Passion of the Christ had so, so much
16:48working against it in theory.
16:49For one, it was an ultra-violent, R-rated depiction
16:53of the events leading up to Jesus' death.
16:55And to make it even more unpalatable to the masses,
16:58it wasn't shot in English,
16:59with most of the dialogue instead being spoken in Aramaic.
17:02But the appeal of a big-budget Jesus movie
17:05combined with the plaudits of director Mel Gibson
17:08was evidently enough to overcome these obstacles.
17:11Even so, few could have expected
17:12the $30 million epic biblical drama
17:15to end up grossing an astonishing $612.1 million.
17:19Almost triple the box office haul
17:21of Gibson's best-picture-winning previous film, Braveheart.
17:25This figure also made it the highest-grossing
17:27Christian film, independent film,
17:29and R-rated film of all time.
17:32And impressively, it still holds the first two records.
17:34A testament to how successful a film can be
17:37when it delivers a powerful experience
17:39to a traditionally underserved demographic.
17:42Top Gun Maverick
17:43Top Gun Maverick is all-timer proof
17:45that all the box office analysis in the world
17:48doesn't mean squat
17:49if a well-made, exciting film
17:51connects with audiences young and old.
17:53When the belated action sequel was first announced,
17:56if someone told you it would end up
17:57grossing just shy of $1.5 billion globally
18:00and receive six Oscar nominations,
18:03including Best Picture,
18:04you surely would have laughed.
18:05Given the film's sizable $177 million budget
18:08and dubious popularity of Top Gun
18:10with younger audiences,
18:12many observers expected it to have
18:14a tough road to profitability.
18:15And if it were lucky,
18:17it might land around the $500 million mark.
18:20But Maverick almost made triple that figure,
18:23in large part because the film found a way
18:24to appeal to both older fans of the original
18:27and those totally fresh to the IP.
18:29The nostalgia factor lured in OG fans,
18:32while the thrilling action and young ensemble cast
18:34helped it attract younger viewers,
18:36which combined with overwhelmingly positive
18:39critical reviews and a consensus
18:40that the spectacle needed to be seen
18:42on the big screen,
18:43drove it to absurd commercial success.
18:47Napoleon Dynamite
18:48Napoleon Dynamite is pretty much
18:50the archetypal indie success story,
18:53with Jared Hess's $400,000 comedy
18:55premiering at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival,
18:58where it was acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures.
19:01Despite being given a highly limited release
19:04that summer, the film's uniquely quirky sense of humour
19:07made it a hit with counterculture types,
19:10serving as a welcome alternative
19:11to the slew of broad generic comedies
19:14dominating multiplexes at the time.
19:16Even so, few could have anticipated
19:18that Napoleon Dynamite would be anything more
19:21than a modest success,
19:22perhaps grossing $5 million
19:24and then disappearing from sight.
19:26But it managed to stick around
19:27and became enough of a genuine oddball phenomenon
19:30in its own right that it ended its run
19:32at $46.1 million.
19:35That's more than 115 times its production budget.
19:40Since then, Napoleon Dynamite
19:41has remained a popular cult film
19:43and a line of merchandise
19:44and even a short-lived animated series,
19:47a basically unimaginable outcome
19:49for an aggressively weird indie comedy
19:51with no-name actors.
19:53Anyone but you.
19:54Though the rom-com was once upon a time
19:57a reliable box office cornerstone,
19:59over the past decade it suffered considerably.
20:02In large part because of the streaming boom.
20:05Given that rom-coms are historically
20:06relatively cheap to make
20:08and less reliant on visual spectacle
20:10than most other genres,
20:11studios began increasingly selling them off
20:13to streamers for an easy buck.
20:15And this was massively accelerated
20:17by the impact of the pandemic.
20:19Since 2020, there have been desperately few
20:22theatrically released rom-coms
20:24and even less which have actually proven
20:26commercially successful.
20:27And so, few were expecting much
20:29from Anyone But You.
20:30The Glenn Powell and Sidney Sweeney
20:32starring romp,
20:33which many dismissed as a glorified streaming movie
20:36and which many doubted offered enough
20:38to lure audiences out of the house.
20:41Yet despite releasing within earshot
20:42of blockbusters like Wonka and Aquaman
20:45and The Lost Kingdom,
20:46Anyone But You grossed a stonking $220.3 million
20:50against a tight $25 million budget.
20:52The film's success proved that there was still
20:55an appetite for theatrical rom-coms
20:57if they starred buzzy actors.
20:59Middling critical reviews be damned.
21:02Fahrenheit 9-11
21:03Even accepting that pop documentaries
21:05like Bowling for Columbine and Super Size Me
21:08could still perform well at the box office
21:10in the early 2000s,
21:12it's truly bewildering that Michael Moore's
21:14Iraq War documentary Fahrenheit 9-11
21:17grows $222.4 million on a mere $6 million budget.
21:21Just try and imagine a documentary in 2025
21:25grossing even 10% of that figure.
21:27Because with streamers largely cornering the market
21:29on documentary distribution nowadays,
21:31it just isn't something most folk are prepared
21:34to leave the house for anymore,
21:36especially post-pandemic.
21:37But Fahrenheit 9-11's performance
21:39is still a massive outlier even for the time,
21:42a testament to the tense political climate of the period
21:44in the lead-up to the US presidential election.
21:47George W. Bush's presidency was such a global spectacle,
21:50even for the standards of American presidents,
21:53that the documentary crossed over
21:54into mainstream appeal worldwide,
21:57surely aided by Moore's own celebrity
21:59as a documentarian and the film's
22:01cuttingly humorous tone.
22:03Yet it goes without saying that cinema
22:05will probably never see a politically-themed documentary,
22:08or actually any documentary,
22:10have this kind of box office juice ever again.
22:13Case in point, even Moore's own 2018 docu-sequel,
22:17Fahrenheit 11-9 grossed just $6.7 million.
22:21And finally, Taken.
22:23On paper, absolutely nothing indicated
22:26that Taken would be anything more than a modest success.
22:29Taking dramatic actor Liam Neeson
22:31and shoving him into a relatively low-budget,
22:34seemingly generic revenge thriller
22:36didn't scream box office dynamite to many people.
22:39Hell, even Neeson himself recently confessed
22:41that he expected the film to go direct to video,
22:43which clearly would have been a huge mistake.
22:46Taken instead performed well internationally,
22:49but was an absolute monster domestically,
22:51ultimately grossing a huge $226.8 million
22:55on a $25 million budget.
22:58This was down to a few factors.
22:59Neeson's reinvention as an action hero
23:02was a huge novelty for middle-aged audiences.
23:05It was packed with intense action sequences,
23:08and of course, Neeson has a number of memorable one-liners
23:11which swiftly penetrated into general culture.
23:13In a period where modestly-budgeted thrillers
23:16were starting to decline commercially,
23:18Taken came along and satisfied demand
23:20by simply being a memorable and well-crafted film
23:23with a popular A-lister steering the ship.
23:26Its success, of course, led to two mostly terrible sequels,
23:29with the trilogy's collective haul
23:31totaling $929 million,
23:34while Neeson enjoyed a late-stage career reboot
23:36and has starred in more than 25 action thrillers since.
23:41So I understand that no matter what you have,
23:41I start to come over here,
23:41and say that if you are able to attract
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