Biggest Surprise of the Decade Is?...

[That One Girl]

Just now, TombRaider said:

i checked on your letterbox and you have boyhood as one of your faves, lmao.

 

Indeed, I do.  #1 fave to be exact.

Edited February 18, 2018 by That One Guy

[Hiccup23]

Blind Side

 

 

A sports film that opened at 41M (inflated) is impressive along but then grosses 300M+ (inflated) is jaw dropping. Also gets nominated for Best Picture and Sandra Bullock wins Best Actress. Shocking. 

[The Panda]

None of the above.

 

GNOME AND JULIET - 99.96m

 

Wtf, why wouldn’t Disney fudge it?

[filmlover]

American Sniper definitely wins this.

[Maxmoser3]

2010: Jackass 3, Incepfion and it’s crazy legs! 

2011: Bridesmaids

2012: Hunger Games definitely for a small studio like Lionsgate, this was huge for them! Ted is one. 

2013: Frozen’s legs, Gravity

2014:Guardians Of The Galaxy

2015: American Sniper, Jurassic World

2016: Deadpool

2017: Get Out, IT, Jumanji, Hidden Figures, Showman, Wonder Woman 

2018: Black Panther 

[PPZVGOS]

5 hours ago, filmlover said:

American Sniper definitely wins this.

This. American Sniper is the kind of movie that usually makes somewhere around 40 to 100m domestic. But it handily went over 300m. A massive shock. 

 

Also, Jurassic World. Sure a Jurassic Park movie is expected to make a lot of money, but 650m domestic and over 1B internationally is simply jaw-dropping. How big was Jurassic World? Way bigger than Star Wars 8, Frozen, any FF movie, any Avengers or any Harry Potter. Truly unbelievable performance. 

 

Guardians, Frozen, Wonder Woman, IT, Hunger Games, Deadpool and Jumanji all over-performed, but I wouldn't describe them as massive surprises since these were films that were expected to be big anyway. Disney cartoons with cute princesses, superhero movies and other concepts based on well established cultural products are bound to do extremely well from time to time.  

[KP1025]

1 minute ago, PPZVGOS said:

Also, Jurassic World. Sure a Jurassic Park movie is expected to make a lot of money, but 650m domestic and over 1B internationally is simply jaw-dropping. How big was Jurassic World? Way bigger than Star Wars 8, Frozen, any FF movie, any Avengers or any Harry Potter. Truly unbelievable performance. 

 

Even with the Jurassic Park brand behind it, I remember people were quite pessimistic when projecting its run (likely due to the mediocre reception of JP3). I think the average prediction was like 1/3 of what Jurassic World actually ended up earning. 

[PPZVGOS]

3 minutes ago, KP1025 said:

Even with the Jurassic Park brand behind it, I remember people were quite pessimistic when projecting its run (likely due to the mediocre reception of JP3). I think the average prediction was like 1/3 of what Jurassic World actually ended up earning. 

Exactly.

 

In matter of fact, after the relative disappointments that were parts 2 & 3, the Jurassic brand was considered past its sell-by date. Jurassic World went on to achieve the kind of success that the original 1993 film did (almost) What The Force Awakens did for Star Wars, Jurassic World did for the Jurassic brand. The difference of course being, that the cultural relevance of Star Wars has been undisputed for over 4 decades (people still lose their shit over Star Wars movies, no matter what) whereas Jurassic Park was considered a one-off event pulled off by Steven Spielberg. 

[MCKillswitch123]

Where the hell is Jurassic World on that poll? One mad nutcase club aside, no one ever even dreamed the opening that it had, and much less the DOM total.

 

Either way, American Sniper gets my vote, but JW should at least be in consideration.

[StevenG]

Hunger Games? Frozen? Jumanji?

Nah.

The Greatest Showman and IT deserve to be in this list more.

Edited February 18, 2018 by StevenG

[MovieMan89]

This question should wait a year and 9 months or so. Also, if we're counting Blind Side in this decade, why aren't we also counting Avatar?

 

And for the record, THG wasn't quite as out of left field as the OP says. A large chunk of us here knew it was the next Twilight at the box office months before release, and there were definitely 300+ predictions floating around, myself included. Maybe not any 400+ ones, but it didn't just come out of nowhere to be a blockbuster. Anyone reading the signs knew it was going to be a blockbuster, just not quite to the level it was. 

 

Similar story for Sniper in the month or so leading up to release. We all knew it was going to breakout huge, just maybe not that huge.

 

TBS is probably the only one on the poll that literally no one expected to be a blockbuster and came out of nowhere to be one. 

[peludo]

Sniper and Jumanji (heading to a x11 multiplier. It is absurdly big)

 

JW would be the winner if Jurassic Park had not done what it did. But with that monstruous precedent I am not so surprised with the result.

[Jake Gittes]

The Intouchables' OS run deserves to be up there too.

[Ethan Hunt]

It's American Sniper

[Walt Disney]

If you were here in 2012, you know that it is The Avengers. The Avengers was a game changer. And no one expected it to do what it did. The fact tgat it isnt one of the options on this poll says a lot.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Walt Disney

[YM!]

American Sniper

[gadd]

I'd have to go with American Sniper as well partially because it was coming off the back of a really underwhelming year box-office wise (2014), where very few of the big blockbusters had matched or surpassed expectations. Although the marketing for American Sniper was excellent, especially that first teaser, and it had signifcant Oscar buzz, I was worried a malaise had set in among movie-goers. 
The rest is history.

[a2k]

THG is under-rated in it's shock-value. It opened before TA and TDKR in 2012 and made it to 3rd biggest OW of all time and the biggest non-sequel OW of all time.

 

OW Record As Of March 2012

1. HP8 169.2 2011, sequel
2. TDK 158.4 2008, sequel
3. THG 152.5 2012, non-sequel
4. SM3 151.1 2007, sequel
5. NEW MOON 142.8 2009, sequel

 

[TombRaider]

has a movie that finished near 200m DOM (as TGS will end) had a first weekend (wide) as low as The greatest showman?? opened with $8,805,843, damn.

 

I know fat greek wedding had a crazy run but its a differnt thing

Edited February 18, 2018 by TombRaider

[Jonwo]

I imagine with IT and American Sniper, WB was expecting perhaps $50-60m OW which for their months would still have broken the OW record for January and September. IT, I knew it would be successful but $700m WW on a $35m budget is insane, that'd be good for a tentpole and Sniper's OS total was very good for a American centric film.