10 Terrible Movies That Blew Awesome Concepts

There's nothing quite like a movie that just hooks you the second you hear about its premise

be it Speed's unstoppable bus, Toy Story's sentient playthings, or Inception's action-thriller

set entirely within dreams. And though an imaginative yet easily digestible concept

can quickly garner social media interest, it sadly doesn't mean the end result will actually

be any good. And as such, the annals of cinema are littered with hugely promising movies that

successfully sold their premises to audiences, though didn't quite manage to deliver a consistently

compelling film in the bargain. So with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with

terrible movies that blew awesome concepts. The Box. Based on a story where a couple receive a

box from a mysterious man who offers them $1 million if they press the button on top. But here's the

catch. Pressing the button will kill somebody they don't know. It's an incredible what-if

elevate a pitch of a premise, and one that captured the public's imagination in the lead-up

to the film's release, aided by the appealing involvement of writer-director Richard Kelly

So, what went wrong? Well, the box unfortunately cemented Kelly as a one-hit wonder director

but despite his film's riveting hook, he ultimately failed to make the most of it or

lead his characters in a remotely satisfying direction. Receiving a rare F cinema score from

audiences, there was widespread dissatisfaction at the film's third act in particular, which seems

to suggest that Kelly wrote himself into a corner and couldn't find a way out of it. Given that the

original story was originally adapted into an episode of The Twilight Zone, it's painfully

obvious that there just wasn't enough material here for a feature film adaptation. Tellingly

in addition to its critical and commercial failure, Kelly hasn't directed another film

in the decades since. Filming TV is cool, but you know what else is cool? Protecting your privacy online

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Hancock What if a guy with superpowers was a suicidally depressed alcoholic who caused millions of

dollars in property damage and was more of a super scourge than a superhero? In 2008

the hype was certainly real for this ahead-of-its-time black comedy superhero film

boasting a stonking $150 million budget and a killer cast. So what went wrong

As is so often the case with big-budget movies, a brilliant original idea had most of its edges

planed away during production. Hancock is based off a script called Tonight He Comes

which spent the better part of a decade being passed around Hollywood before it was finally

rewritten into what would become Hancock. And during that process, the R-rated tone was reworked

in favour of a broader, more family-friendly one. Though it's generally accepted that Hancock begins

solidly things take a sharp turn at the midway point with an increasingly contrived and off number of revelations which overcomplicate a fairly straightforward character study In a post world it easier to imagine studios accepting the original script at face value

but back in 2008, the world clearly wasn't quite ready for a more rough-edged vision of superheroism

Transcendence After an AI scientist, Dr. William Caster, is mortally wounded, his consciousness is uploaded to a quantum computer

allowing Will to survive physical death but raising questions about the precise nature of human existence

With Christopher Nolan's acclaimed cinematographer Wally Pfister directing, a script that appeared on the coveted blacklist for best unproduced screenplays

and with a brilliant cast, there were plenty of reasons to be excited

So what went wrong? This was 1000% down to the scripts and though Pfister made a few directorial stumbles in his debut

he ultimately acquitted himself fairly well for a first-time filmmaker given a $100-150 million budget

Though Transcendence asks a compelling central question, what is it to be human, it's ultimately a depressingly superficial film

that thinks it's far smarter than it actually is. The characters routinely act like idiots, the tech logic doesn't line up with how the internet actually works

and the majority of the ensemble cast are wasted in forgettable nothing roles

Worse than all this, though, Transcendence is just thunderously dull, and it's likely that few have even actively thought about it since its cinematic release

Truth or Dare What if Truth or Dare was more than just a harmless game played by drunken teenagers

What if it was governed by a malevolent supernatural force which kills anyone who either lies or fails to complete their dare

On paper, it's certainly a neat, easily marketable concept for a fun R-rated comedy horror flick in the vein of Final Destination, where irritating teens are

brutally killed off in imaginatively gnarly ways by an unseen murderous entity. So what went wrong

So many things. Granted, Blumhouse knew exactly what they were doing with Truth or Dare

constructing a stunningly tame PG-13 horror flick which would appeal to the adolescent crowd

and pull in easy profits as a result. It ultimately grossed almost $100 million against a mere $3.5

million dollar budget, so it certainly worked out. Yet this film basically goes in the exact

opposite direction that it should have. The tone takes itself way too seriously

there's no self-awareness regarding how irritating the characters are, the PG-13 rating ensures tame

choppy death scenes, and the CGI smile everyone wears before dying is more laughable than creepy

The performances suck, the visuals have all the blandness of a forgettable CW teen drama show

and the ending is about as hilariously desperate as sequel bait finales come

In time. In a 22nd century, humans have been engineered to stop ageing at 25, after which they receive

a one countdown to death As a result time has become a universal currency where acquiring more of it either through work or more nefarious means is of the utmost importance Oscar screenwriter Andrew Nicol was hired to write and direct the film and given his history of penning socially relevant sci films it was easy to be excited from the outset

So, what went wrong? This is perhaps the textbook example of incredible premise, awful execution, because Nickel deserves a wealth of credit for coming up with such a unique allegorical hook

But despite some intriguing world-building, a lack of consistent in-universe logic alongside two utterly unremarkable protagonists make, in time, more a frustrating, weirdly generic experience than anyone ever anticipated

Laughably unsubtle in serving up limp action sequences, Nichols' film doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of its ludicrous potential

Tomorrowland. A washed-up genius inventor and a hopeful teenager venture together to Tomorrowland

a futuristic secret society that harbours some disturbing secrets about the future of humanity

With total legend Brad Bird directing, it's safe to say that Tomorrowland was one of 2015's most anticipated movies

So, what went wrong? Though the performances are fine enough and it sure looks handsome

Tomorrowland is, for all of its fist-pumping about the boundless possibilities of human achievement

a rather ironic monument to failed potential. Bizarrely charmless and sterile, the film sees Bird misguidedly keeping Clooney off-screen for around an hour

while forcing Robertson to follow a series of uninspired plot threads towards their inevitable collision

Tedious. That's the word. It's tedious. Terminator Salvation What if Terminator fans finally got that future war movie

they've been asking for since the very first Terminator movie? What if that incredible opening sequence from T2 was, you know, the entire movie

And what if it starred Christian Bale as John Connor? Sounds good, doesn't it

So what went wrong? It was incredibly easy to be lured in by the terrific marketing for this film

which touted the fourth Terminator movie as a gritty answer to the not-bad-but-overly-comical Terminator 3

Yet Salvation ultimately goes too far the other way, stripping out even the agreeable black humour of the first two movies

leaving behind a dull, soulless husk of a blockbuster without much on its mind at all

Also, Bale's shouty performance is a total misfire, failing to convey the heroism or the conflicted nature of the resistance leader

And the CGI Arnie's pretty bad too. The one. You can just imagine writer-director James Wong pitching this movie to Columbia Pictures as Jet Li's Highlander because it's honestly one hell of a hook

The one casts Li as a rogue interdimensional police officer who decides to visit all 124 parallel dimensions and kill every alternate version of himself, gaining power with each one he kills

So what went wrong? The one is a casualty of the post boom where every sci action flick wanted to be a mind CGI martial arts extravaganza in the pursuit of epic box office receipts And though it arguably works as ironically

entertaining garbage, the film ultimately fails to make the most of its Jet Li vs Jet Li premise

serving up wonky, technically rough action set to hilariously inappropriate new metal music

I mean, it was the early noughties, need I say more? Also, Jason Statham has hair in this film

which is just inherently off-putting, passengers. A spacecraft transporting 5,000 colonists to a

far-flung planet suffers a malfunction, causing one of the inhabitants, Jim Preston, to be woken

from stasis 90 years early. In order to stave off crushing lifelong loneliness, Preston wakes up

another passenger, Aurora Lane, without her knowledge or consent. So what went wrong? The

tone and marketing for this film were all wrong. Though Columbia ultimately decided to conceal the

fact that Jim is the cause of Aurora waking up, this was actually revealed in an early synopsis

released by the studio before they decided that this darker element might turn off more mainstream

viewers. But the biggest issue stems from the script and direction, which fail to adequately

convey the agony of Preston's predicament and insist that the blossoming romance between Jim

and Aurora is genuine rather than, you know, sublimely creepy. Had the film taken place from

Aurora's perspective and then sort of morphed into a horror film of sorts in Act 3 once Jim's

desperate act is revealed, then Passengers really could have been something. Instead

it wants audiences to root for a most questionable love story indeed. In addition to this, neither

Chris Pratt nor Jennifer Lawrence brought much to the table, and despite being the hottest movie

stars on the planet at the time of the film's release, their chemistry was completely lacking

Downsizing. A sci-fi dramedy from Alexander Payne, where Paul and Audrey Safranek decide to undergo

an experimental new procedure, shrinking themselves down in order to escape their

financial problems and live a more prosperous life. But when Audrey bails out at the last minute

a miniature Paul is now forced to re-evaluate his life choices. The film came jam-packed with

satirical promise, especially given Payne's prior Oscar-winning success, not to forget his fantastic

cast. As such, downsizing was widely expected to be a major Best Picture Oscar threat in late 2017

So, say it with me now, what went wrong? After a compelling first act establishes the premise and

places Paul in this wacky predicament, Payne finds himself as a lost writer-director, unable to pull

the alluring scenario in any further interesting direction. Rather, the bulk of the movie's bloated

remnants are needlessly devoted to the Vietnamese activist character in a subplot that's more

grating, charmless and misguided than politically relevant. Rather than serve as a stinging satire

about late capitalism that makes the most of the cast's charms, it's a ham-fisted piece of

environmental hand-wringing that feels like somebody making a half-baked effort to emulate

Payne's style above all else