17 Summer Blockbusters That Had No Business Being As Good As They Were

The Expectations: When Marvel, a company known for its comic business, decided to get into movies, it wasn’t an easy fit. The company didn’t have that much money and the rights to their most famous characters, like Spider-Man and the X-Men, had been sold to other studios, so their first film was Iron Man. The hiring of Elf director Jon Favreau and actor Robert Downey Jr, who at that moment in time was more known for his drug problems and having spent time in jail, didn’t inspire much confidence either. Neither did their methods, as there was a lot of improvisation, so much so, that Jeff Bridges was having trouble with the shoot: “It drove me absolutely crazy until I made a slight adjustment in my brain, and that adjustment was, ‘Jeff, just relax. You’re making a $200 million student film. Just relax and have fun.’

The Reality: Loud, sexy, fun, surprising, unique, and with an incredibly charismatic Downey performance, and the great "I am Iron Man" line to end the movie, Iron Man was the first stone in what became the MCU, the biggest Hollywood money maker of the last decade. The film earned $585 million, was liked by critics, and gave an electroshock of new life to Downey’s career. It was also the best proof of concept for what producer Kevin Feige wanted to do in this universe. The mid-credits sequence with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury made things even sweeter.

The movie had two sequels, and the character of Iron Man appeared in many more films, including all the Avengers films, and became the de facto leader of the MCU. That’s why Tony Stark’s sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame meant so much, as the character and actor were the ones who started the whole universe.

The Expectations: Disney has a Pirates of the Caribbean ride at its parks, which was why they decided to make this film, so nobody expected big things out of it. Johnny Depp was known more for his indie films and Tim Burton’s movies, Keira Knightley was an 18-year-old actress with Bend It Like Beckham being her most recognizable film, Orlando Bloom was unproven outside of playing Legolas in the Lord of the Rings films, and director Gore Verbinski had only done three films, one of them being Mouse Hunt. Plus, the fact that the movie cost $140 million to make, and critics anticipated that it would flop, spelled disaster all around. Disney CEO Michael Eisner also allegedly considered shutting down production after another ride-inspired film, The Country Bears, flopped.

The Reality: The film was fun and light. It had a lot of action yet no blood (so families could see it together). It was filled with jokes, adventure, spectacular sea scenes, and the chemistry between Knightley and Bloom was great. If all that wasn’t enough, everyone fell in love with Depp’s Jack Sparrow, so much so that the actor was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor for his performance (he lost to Sean Penn in Mystic River). The movie went on to earn $654 million at the box office, the fourth most of the year, and became the start of a franchise with five movies to date. Not bad for an old-school Disney ride.

The Expectations: It might sound strange to hear now, but Steven Spielberg was just a young filmmaker with some potential when he decided to shoot this film, and most people were expecting a B monster movie and nothing else. News during the shooting didn’t look favorable either, as the shark kept breaking down and not working on the sea, and filming on the ocean was much tougher than anyone expected. The fact that the film was going to be released in the summer also proved nobody in the studio thought much of it, as, back then, summer was the time of the year where movies went to die (now January, known as a dump month, has that sad honor). 

The Reality: If a film can give you goosebumps with its soundtrack and make many people never want to get into the ocean, that means the filmmakers did a great job, and that was what Jaws did. The film was scary and dramatic, even if the shark didn’t appear that much. Spielberg himself said the broken shark was actually a good thing: “The shark not working was a godsend. It made me become more like Alfred Hitchcock … When I didn’t have control of my shark it made me kind of rewrite the whole script without the shark. Therefore, in many people’s opinions the film was more effective.”

If all that wasn’t enough, Jaws’ box office success was such that it changed the way movies were released, making summer one of its most important release periods and with many more wide releases. So, if you love summer movies, this is the movie to thank.

The Expectations: The tenth Marvel movie looked like the craziest: a galactic team that was obscure even for comic fans, with no relation to any of the heroes audiences had already met, and with a crew that included a green woman, a crazy raccoon, and a talking tree. Betting on James Gunn, who was mostly known for his B movies like Slither and having written the Scooby-Doo films, and the funny guy from Parks and Recreation as the lead also looked pretty wild. Chris Pratt still remembers what critics were saying before the movie's release: “That was the consensus critically. Everyone was saying all of these negative things. At the time, we were insecure and nervous about the prospects… they're saying it's a title no one has ever heard of, we don't have any A-list stars, [it will be] Marvel's first failure. I remember all of that”

The Reality: Guardians of the Galaxy earned $773 million at the box office and became an absolute hit that transformed Gunn and Pratt’s careers. It also made this bunch of misfits some of the more beloved characters in the whole MCU with their unique sense of humor and goofy chemistry. Everything went better than anyone could’ve imagined, and proof of it is that even the soundtrack was a hit, becoming the first film soundtrack in history, with no new songs, to become number one on the Billboard 200 chart. The film had two sequels that made it the most rounded MCU trilogy and its characters also appeared in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

The Expectations: A period piece with film noir influences mixing animation and real-life characters is enough of a challenge, even more so if said animated character isn’t already famous. Mixing animation and live action made the shooting itself was very laborious, even if Roger Rabbit’s voice actor, Charles Fleischer, was on set performing the part. Not even the people working on it knew if it worked, as screenwriter Peter S. Seaman told Gizmodo: “Preview audiences saw it with unfinished animation and pencil tests and it freaked the audience out. So until we saw it with a big audience and it was finished, we didn’t know what we had.”

The Reality: Not only did the film become a blockbuster but also a cult classic that influenced a whole generation. The film was Disney’s biggest opening weekend box office success ever (in 1988) and was the highest-grossing film of the year worldwide with $238 million. Nowadays, mixing animation and live-action is pretty standard, but in the '80s, it was one of the craziest technology advancements ever, and they pulled it off,  proving how ahead of its time the film really was. Even more surprising, it got both Disney and Warner Bros. animated characters to appear together and interact, making the whole thing much funnier and surprising.

The Expectations: Even with Bruce Willis playing the lead, the film had a small budget and an unknown director, M. Night Shyamalan. Disney released the film (through its Buena Vista Pictures arm) in August, and had so little faith in it that the studio sold the production rights, so everything pointed to a small, scary film that would become, at best, a cult classic. 

The Reality: A scary movie, a box office hit, a best picture Academy Award nominee, one of the best movie twists ever made, one of the best Bruce Willis performances, one of the best child actor performances ever, one of the best word of mouth, The Sixth Sense had it all. Bruce Willis proved he was more than an action hero with fun quips, and M. Night Shyamalan got a director career out of it. 

The movie was the second-highest-grossing film of the year, only beaten by Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace, as many people wanted to rewatch it after knowing the twist and see how the clues had been there all along.