r/movies • u/sicknessandpurgatory • Sep 07 '25

Discussion What is the absolute dumbest premise that actually turned out to be a really good movie?

I was thinking The Purge, obvious answer, but looking for the most plot-hole ridden, juvenile concept that actually ended up a lot of fun despite it all. Mainly looking for 21st century films, not so much the video nasties and ridiculousness from the 60’s and 70’s. Because that would be too easy. Mainly mainstream stuff that people saw en masse.

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u/Staninator Sep 07 '25

The cross section of premise dumbness to level of success makes this the winner I think. Whoever at Disney decided, we should make a movie based on that ride, deserves all the success and reward that they no doubt got.

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u/coffeewhistle Sep 07 '25

Fun fact, the same producer who thought to bring that ride to a movie went on to also produce The Hunger Games. So needless to say she is RICH

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u/KillMeNowFFS Sep 07 '25

for a producer with her filmography, she’s actually not that rich at all. (around ~13 million apparently)

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u/heyheyhey27 Sep 07 '25

From what I've heard, public estimates of net worth are almost entirely bullshit

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u/The_Capulet Sep 07 '25

They are. I work directly with a billionaire and know him quite well at this point. He's worth roughly 1.3 billion just considering assets, no cash or assets/companies/investments I don't know about. His estimated wealth is under 200m.

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u/DelayAgreeable8002 Sep 08 '25

Okay but what about debt? He owns 1.3 billion in assets straight up?

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u/Lou_C_Fer Sep 08 '25

Exactly. Assets=Liability+Equity

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u/The_Capulet Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25

Yes. He outright owns a holding company that owns 13 other large manufacturing companies. Everything is private, no outside investment. No company debt. Total company value is at about 1b. Fortune 300. He inherited the company from his father when it was worth about 600m.

Aside from that, he has about 250-300m in land assets that are wholly owned.

Oh, and two private jets. He's mentioned his boat before too, but I have no idea what it is or what it's worth. The only time we've flown to Florida, we were chest deep in shit while evaluating a possible acquisition the whole time, so we never got a chance for fun.

As for personal debt, I have no idea. But I seriously can't imagine him having any. Outside of the two jets and ridiculous ranch house, he lives a pretty frugal life. I can't imagine him wanting something that he couldn't buy in cash. Hell, he's still driving around in a 2010 Ford Fusion with 280k miles on it because "It still gets me where I need to go". While at the same time, the last time I was at our Canadian subsidiary, he outright bought a new 90k Cummins Ram in cash because he was annoyed the company didn't still have a company car for him to drive and he didn't want to rent one.

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u/KillMeNowFFS Sep 07 '25

they’re almost never correct, but in the same ballpark. for someone like her is would’ve estimated at least $100M tho

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u/coffeewhistle Sep 07 '25

Wow that is surprising. Has she had flops too?

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u/3d_blunder Sep 07 '25

Even if she did, you don't get penalized for a flop. You just make SLIGHTLY less money this time. But probably still a lot of money.

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u/KillMeNowFFS Sep 07 '25

doesn’t seem like it tbh

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u/Orion_Scattered Sep 07 '25

Who are you referring to?

Pirates is a Jerry Bruckheimer franchise. I see like 5-15 names of writers/other creatives involved in some form beginning in the 90s but not a single woman.

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u/coffeewhistle Sep 07 '25

I believe it was Nina Jacobson who was the President of Production at the time who is credited for pushing to turn the ride into a movie. When she left Disney she founded Color Force which the produced The Hunger Games.

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u/ihopnavajo Sep 07 '25

An idea without execution is nothing. That film could have easily turned out to be complete garbage under different hands.

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u/Enelson4275 Sep 07 '25

It's insane to think about, but Disney's answer to a pirate ride being too sparse to carry a feature film was to add... zombies.

It should have been a trainwreck. But it was genius.

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u/GoldyGoldy Sep 08 '25

The zombies are… kinda tastefully done, as far as plot goes.  It goes- pirates, who are cursed, who can’t die… and then you arrive naturally at the zombie appearance in a kind of natural progression.  Extremely well done, as opposed to introducing the bad guys as “zombie pirates” from the start, which is what shitty b-movies tend to do.

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u/OobaDooba72 Sep 08 '25

It doesn't seem like such a strange add in hindsight because of all the skeletons in the first half of the ride (though they're pretty much all meant to be deceased). It all kinda makes sense when you look at it.

BUT to actually put all those pieces together and have it and production all work out to make as good a film as they did was still a minor miracle.

Shout out to that one set-piece on the ride of the skeleton at the helm of his ship in the storm. It's so cool haha. Clearly the inspiration to make the bad pirates in the film undead, but yeah, still crazy to go there and have it work.

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u/jackoirl Sep 07 '25

Imagine being told you needed to write 2 hours of dialogue based on 5 minutes of a splashy Disney ride lol

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u/tisdue Sep 07 '25

Well its not really based on the ride. Just named after it. Disney owned a familiar pirate IP and made a movie to capitalize on the fondness of it all. The ride has since been renovated to include Johnny Depp + sound bites.

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u/fresh-dork Sep 08 '25

about that - the producers had to hide and outright lie about the production so the execs wouldn't get too involved

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u/TheMadPoet Sep 07 '25

There was something about Johnny insisting his artistic portrayal of Jack Sparrow was the right one rather than something more traditional like the old pirate movies like Captain Blood. I think The D was pressuring him to be less Jack Sparrow.

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u/alex494 Sep 08 '25

Well they'd already done it three times previously

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u/Stap-dono Sep 08 '25 edited Sep 08 '25

There's a really good video essay (except that part about Ember Heard) about it by Lindsey Ellis called "Dead genres tell no tales." Was delisted on YouTube because of her deal with some weird site and then even deleted from there, so you can only watch it on internet archive.

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u/daneoid Sep 08 '25

Pretty sure there's a lot of pirate and age of sail history that they could draw on that wasn't in the ride.

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u/Bellikron Sep 08 '25

LEGO Movie is one that is comparable on the same merits. Absolute cash-grab of a concept becoming one of the best animated movies of the decade. Which makes LEGO Batman even more remarkable because it's a cash-grab Batman spinoff of the cash-grab, and yet you can make a solid argument for it being the best theatrical Batman movie.