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News & Current Events Mar 24, 2026 at 6:32 PM

What are some movies that feel like anomalies in the movies industry?

Posted by revolution_ex

As someone who’s been following movies for a while, I always find it interesting when the industry has these rare moments that just don’t follow the usual logic, but end up working out really well. Like Spider-Man. One of the most popular characters in the world, yet it’s taken this long to get a proper fourth film in a series. You’d expect studios to keep those going non-stop, so the gap makes it feel a bit unusual. Or The Avengers. At the time, the idea of building up multiple solo films just to bring everyone together sounded risky, but it ended up reshaping the entire comic book movie landscape and pushed every studio to try their own cinematic universe. And then something like Oppenheimer. An R-rated, 3-hour biopic becoming a massive box office success, even while releasing alongside a huge, more traditional crowd-pleaser like Barbie, which also crossed a billion. That whole situation feels like something you wouldn’t normally expect to happen. I’m curious, what are some other “anomaly” moment movies that surprised you like this?
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Kangarou Mar 24, 2026 +53
Rocky. No serious monetary backing, and Stallone made a lot of concessions to make things work. Not to mention, the movie follows almost zero guidelines of plot development (For example, the "Call to Action", a fairly early event in most stories, doesn't legitimately occur until Act 3, and the primary conflict doesn't occur until afterwards). It's an hour of characterizing maybe three people, and then a boxing match, where the protagonist loses.
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gamersecret2 Mar 24, 2026 +16
Avatar still feels like one to me. Biggest movie in the world, huge cultural footprint at the box office, and yet people still act like nobody cares about it. That is a weird kind of anomaly.
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not_thrilled Mar 25, 2026 +1
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I fall into that group you're talking about. I saw Avatar in the theater, because it was The Thing To See. It bounced off me - terrible dialogue, cliched story, but dang, it's beautiful. I watched it again on streaming, but it's just not a movie I care about. I watched The Way of Water on Disney+, and again, really did not care for it. I'm not sure I'll even watch the third one on D+. I would say that Avatar strikes me as a case where box office and love for a film are not necessarily related, but the sequels have somehow remained a box office draw. I would still maintain people just see them for the eye candy and/or as "vibes" movies, but I may be projecting.
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a20261 Mar 24, 2026
An excellent choice. What's the biggest movie ever that no one cares about: *Avatar*. I am curious, what was the biggest movie people *do* care about? Maybe *Titanic*? For a certain group of folks it might be Nolan's *The Dark Knight* but there probably isn't enough crossover to other demographics. *Gone with the Wind*?
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belbivfreeordie Mar 25, 2026 +3
People care about a lot of movies but Star Wars is the best answer.
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a20261 Mar 25, 2026
That would have been my go-to answer before the Disney acquisition. It feels like the product has been diluted (for every Rogue One there's a Last Jedi, for every Andor there's Book of Boba Fett).
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belbivfreeordie Mar 25, 2026 +3
Sounded like you were asking about a single movie. Star Wars has to be the single biggest movie that has had the most lasting impact in terms of people caring a LOT about it for many decades after it was released.
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revolution_ex Mar 25, 2026
Good choice Also it started a new wave of 3D movies, for the money ofc
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The-Batt Mar 24, 2026 +17
I think the first Iron Man movie fits this better. Marvel wanted to start a universe but they did not have the rights to Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Punisher, Ghost Rider and others. They had every reason to fail, but they not only succeeded but far exceeded anyone’s expectations.
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RodanThrelos Mar 24, 2026 +7
Before the first Iron Man movie, Iron Man was considered a D-level hero, at best. There were a ton of jokes about not being able to get the big Marvel characters like Spidey or X-Men. It was also considered a joke because comic book movies just didn't do that well, other than Batman. Hell, even Spidey had failed after the first movie.
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A_BURLAP_THONG Mar 25, 2026 +1
> Hell, even Spidey had failed after the first movie. Wut? Spider-man 2 had even better reviews than the first and was the 2nd highest grossing movie of 2004. Spider-man 3 got pretty lousy reviews but was the highest grossing movie of the year and broke a bunch of opening weekend box office records. They weren't failuries by any metric.
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TomorrowFinancial468 Mar 25, 2026 +1
In what universe did Spiderman fail? Spiderman 2 is still widely considered the greatest superhero movie of all time
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Jonny_Manz Mar 24, 2026 +3
Plus, IIRC, their financial situation was pretty bad (the ‘90s were *terrible* to them, and the early ‘00s weren’t much better, I believe) So that movie was kind of like a last, desperate Hail Mary, using a character that they still had film rights to (one who, at that point, was on a lower tier popularity wise - hence why they probably still had the film rights, as they’d sold off the film rights to the more popular characters, as you mentioned above, to try and keep their heads above water) so that it turned out so well, I think, surprised a lot of people.
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FX114 Mar 24, 2026 +3
They wanted to start a universe specifically to compensate for not having those high-draw characters.
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revolution_ex Mar 25, 2026 +2
Yeah wanted to put this too, but would have been too Comic book movie focused so didn't
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LeftSky828 Mar 25, 2026 +2
Great movies start with great writing. Robert Downey Jr. also exploded out of near obscurity with a hell of a character performance.
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WerewolfCurious1412 Mar 24, 2026 +15
It wasn’t successful, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, was just about everything Hollywood isn’t doing. Original film, with some heavy satire about the current state of things, with a big budget and star that everyone seems to love, directed by a very credible director. Made nothing, but will be talked about for decades by those that saw it and liked it.
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LightningRaven Mar 24, 2026 +1
The movie is definitely awesome. No doubt it will have a cult following in the years to come.
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783848859 Mar 26, 2026 +1
How the hell have I never even heard of this? I love Sam Rockwell, I'm big into sci fi, it's directed by Gore Verbinski.... Did it have no marketing at all? Anyway, watching it tonight.
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smashinjin10 Mar 24, 2026 +14
Spiderman getting 4 movies plus appearances in the avengers in less than 10 years seems too slow to you?
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revolution_ex Mar 25, 2026 +1
yeah I meant more as in, they couldn't reach till 4th entry in single continuity
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Curious-Tennis7533 Mar 24, 2026 +36
I think the first john Wick ( 2014 ) was a huge anomaly on paper it looked like a standard low budget action flick about a guy seeking revenge for his dog. but it had such a unique world building and a specific gun-fu style that it basically revitalized Keanu Reeves career and changed the visual language of action movies for the next decade . nobody expected it to become a massive franchise .
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riegspsych325 Mar 24, 2026 +6
I erroneously dismissed it as direct-to-dvd schlock that managed to get a theatrical release. I used to browse IGN a lot at the time and they kept on teasing the movie in several articles but always said “more on that later” before a trailer released. I had an assumed it was a messy production that couldn’t get any distribution for being a lax action movie Then the trailer came out and it looked surprisingly decent then the movie released to a lot of great fanfare. I might love JW4 the most as it is an insane and beautiful exercise in action choreography & camerawork (and I absolutely loved the new characters). But I won’t deny the first works so well as a smaller scale story that is every much its own thing We can thank Eva Longoria for coming in clutch to help finance the movie before it got canned
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thedonhudson01 Mar 24, 2026 +3
Agreed on all points! Have you seen the documentary Wick is Pain?
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Curious-Tennis7533 Mar 24, 2026 +3
Definitely it makes you appreciate the movie so much more when you see the training behind it. Keanu 's work ethic is next level
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riegspsych325 Mar 24, 2026 +1
no, haven’t even heard of it
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thedonhudson01 Mar 24, 2026 +3
Check it out! It’s a fantastic documentary with Keanu and Chad Stahelski. They go through all the Wick films and their stories of making them. https://youtu.be/LaEjB78QLSE?si=B-VCnyfySj-Qniy1
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marijuanam0nk Mar 24, 2026 +3
I would add Equilibrium to this with Christian Bale.
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revolution_ex Mar 24, 2026 +2
this is a good pick
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sotommy Mar 24, 2026 +1
It's even bigger of an anomaly because Bruce Willis supposed to be JW, and I guess the sequels wouldn't exist because he was not in a good enough condition to make them(even tough I wish he did the first one). There's also the fact that they almost named Steve Austin's character in The Package(written by Derek Kolstad) "John Wick". So they wouldn't have used it for Keanu's character and the entire franchise would have a different name. And of course it wouldn't exist as it is, without The Man from Nowhere that the creators of John Wick are supposedly remaking and which had a leading man who retired from acting right after he made TMfN(the movie probably wouldn't have worked that well with another actor)
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not_thrilled Mar 25, 2026 +1
I've read or watched nearly everything I can about the making of John Wick, and I've never heard the Bruce Willis thing. What's your source on that? From everything I've heard, financing was nearly impossible to rustle up, so casting someone who cost as much as Bruce Willis I can't imagine was ever on the table.
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sotommy Mar 25, 2026 +1
John was meant to be an older, retired assasin and they had Bruce in mind. It was changed during development
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not_thrilled Mar 25, 2026 +1
Okay, but what's your source for that?
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JBru_92 Mar 24, 2026 +41
Everything Everywhere All At Once winning 7 Oscars and Best Picture is way crazier than it gets credit for. That's the kind of film that in the 90s serious film snobs would have either absolutely hated or called a cult classic. A film that zany and surreal with an almost entirely minority cast used to have zero chances at the Academy Awards, felt like a new paradigm when it won everything.
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Anal_Herschiser Mar 24, 2026 +12
I thought the moment in that movie where the dude is trying power slam himself onto a d**** would have knocked it from any Oscar contention.
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colemon1991 Mar 24, 2026 +6
The writing for that could be its own book or documentary. Literally everything was relevant. It felt like one of those movies where they somehow got lucky with every single thing, all the way to casting and release date, and ended up with one of those rare gems you couldn't plan to make if you tried.
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JBru_92 Mar 24, 2026 +5
I'm glad my instincts were correct on it, when I first saw it in theaters I couldn't shake the feeling that it was probably the best movie I'd seen in 10 years. It seemed like 'normal' film critics couldn't quite grasp it, like they knew it was good and different but it felt too far outside of what 'film buffs' normally praise. Whereas every other weirdo and nerd like me agreed it was incredibly special.
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colemon1991 Mar 24, 2026 +3
It figured out how to mesh everything coherently and get stuffed to the rafters with so. much. detail. What genre is it? Yes. Is there a cultural message and personal growth for multiple characters? Yes. Pop-culture references? Yes. Are there googly-eyes? Of course we managed to put googly eyes in our movie! It's the kind of thing you can't half-watch and understand what's going on and you'd be crazy to half-watch in the first place.
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FX114 Mar 24, 2026 +1
> It seemed like 'normal' film critics couldn't quite grasp it, like they knew it was good and different but it felt too far outside of what film buffs' normally praise. Film critics loved the movie, though.
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non_clever_username Mar 24, 2026 +9
LOTR series. Giving several hundred million dollars and 18 months of filming to a director whose biggest US directing credit to date (The Frighteners) was tepidly received at best is nuts when you think about it.
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revolution_ex Mar 25, 2026 +1
yeah good pick
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voivoivoi183 Mar 24, 2026 +32
Blade Runner 2049. Basically a 150mil arthouse movie. Incredible it even got made imo. Amazing cinema experience. Long may Denis Villeneuve keep getting away with it.
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revolution_ex Mar 24, 2026 +9
and he did it again with Dune like inspite of the book adaptations' history and with pandemic too.  Dude brought the series till trilogy finish lines 
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lifeisawork_3300 Mar 24, 2026 +5
May not be popular amongst some fans but the Terrifier series. Went from low budget to a bigger budget for the following two sequels, Damien didn’t sell out to a bigger studio to make his vision safe and instead went his way with over the top gore and violence and in the end, the movies made more than their original budgets. Art has gotten more popular and in a world where more sophisticated horror is welcomed, Terrifier took it back to its more “edgier” stuff with more of a classic slasher vibe.
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23icefire Mar 24, 2026 +11
Iron Lung. Self funded, self published, gave double pay bonuses to the entire crew. Really shook up the industry to have something that wasn't backed by Hollywood be that successful. Even if you didn't like it, you got to admit it's a very clear tonal shift for the film industry, following what has been happening with the indie game, music, and animation scene.
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colemon1991 Mar 24, 2026 +2
I wish Wikipedia included the double pay thing. Definitely a detail worth mentioning about a film that already broke expectations.
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AssociateDesperate71 Mar 24, 2026 +7
So why don’t you add it to Wikipedia?
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colemon1991 Mar 24, 2026 +4
I've only ever fixed minor typos. Never added info and a source before.
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JonnySnowflake Mar 24, 2026 +2
It's pretty easy. Once you hit Edit there's a button that will basically generate the citation for you. I was nervous the first time I wrote an article too
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colemon1991 Mar 25, 2026 +2
I'll give it a try. If you pull up a Wikipedia page with some crazy formatting issues but correct spelling and grammar, that's probably me!
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ApesAPoppin237 Mar 24, 2026 +6
We've had big theatrical releases for 10 Spider-man movies since 2002, not counting the new one. I think they're pacing them out just fine. Oversaturation can make people lose interest. To answer your question, Megalopolis was certainly an anomaly. Not a successful one, but an anomaly nonetheless.
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RodanThrelos Mar 24, 2026 +2
For sure. I got Marvel and Star Wars fatigue after so many shows and movies released all at once.
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colemon1991 Mar 24, 2026 +1
You also had a reliable director running the ship and get told to shoehorn Venom in, then had to step away based on studio interference. Then you had another director that seemed pretty good (with a last name of Webb) but the studio followed through on their interference by successfully hiring James Vanderbilt to write the script (Sony intended for him to draft Spider-Man 4-6 before Raimi walked away). Their dream of a Sinister Six film was their undoing on this one. Marvel finally got their hands on making the movies while Sony funds them. This gives Marvel access to the character for crossovers and provides a sort of quality control on the production, giving us a reliable collage of new villains, intriguing plots, and really creative fanservice. Honestly, I'm only glad Raimi didn't make a 4th of his series only because we're got No Way Home and this 4th one.
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revolution_ex Mar 24, 2026 +1
yeah I meant more as in, they couldn't reach till 4th entry in single continuity
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mayan_monkey Mar 24, 2026 +3
My big fat greek wedding. The Last showman. Titanic, The Exorcist In terms of legs, man these had them.
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revolution_ex Mar 25, 2026 +2
hello fellow r/boxoffice fan(ig) thanks for this comment 
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gershbec Mar 24, 2026 +3
Just rewatched Babe: Pig In The City and I'm amazed that it got made and released. Surely someone at the studio must have realized that it was nightmare fuel and that any parent who took their child to see it was potentially opening up years of therapy. It's a masterpiece but it's insane.
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PhotoRight2682 Mar 25, 2026 +1
Truth! This movie is wildly dark. At one point there's a lost puppy in the city who says "my owners tied me in a bag and throwed me in the river" in the saddest little puppy voice you've ever heard. 👀 What?!
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gershbec Mar 25, 2026 +1
Not to mention they actually almost do drown a dog by dropping him head first in a river. OTOH, the scene where the dog that doesn't have use of his back legs is knocked unconscious and dreams of chasing butterflies is one of my all-time favorite movie scenes.
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MelbaToast604 Mar 24, 2026 +3
The Blair Witch Project No one had ever made a movie like that, it coincided with a young internet coming out and they made it seem like those characters were real and actually were missing. There will never be another movie like this because were all wise to it, but at the time it was a major wtffffff
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BarberCompetitive517 Mar 24, 2026 +7
Two superhero movies are not "anomolies" in a movie industry that primarily revolves around superhero movies. An anomaly is a movie like Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018), which is almost entirely up to viewer interpretation and includes a single shot that runs for more than an hour.
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revolution_ex Mar 24, 2026 +3
> in a movie industry that primarily revolves around superhero movies. but it is because of that movie, the industry revolves around them
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BarberCompetitive517 Mar 24, 2026 -1
It was revolving around superhero movies long before the Avengers. Iron Man 1, 2, X-men, Spiderman, previous versions of Superman, etc, etc, all had already happened and prepared this model that Avengers simply fit into.
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revolution_ex Mar 24, 2026 +2
I'm not disagreeing with second paragraph > Two superhero movies are not "anomolies" in a movie industry that primarily revolves around superhero movies. but Avengers is definitely anomaly, it made every studio go after the cinematic universe and in turn industry wide change
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BarberCompetitive517 Mar 24, 2026 -1
Then that's really not an "anomaly" and more like an "archetype"
-1
revolution_ex Mar 24, 2026 +1
🤔 interesting
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FluffyAd6797 Mar 24, 2026 +4
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Super melancholy/atmospheric movie where the main character is played by an actor known for overly animated (in a good way) physical, slapstick comedy. And it delivers beautifully. Also, Adam Sandler in Punch, Drunk, Love, and Uncut Gems for the same reason. + low budget movies that become cult classics. Napoleon Dynamite, if I’m not mistaken, was a class project in college. Add in there Blair Witch Project as well: who would’ve thought people would flock to a movie of a couple of friends with a camcorder in the woods?
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monty_kurns Mar 24, 2026 +6
Blair Witch Project had a marketing campaign that was implemented at just the right moment and could never be replicated again. In the very early days of the internet, the filmmakers built a few websites about the Blair Witch and the "history" of Burkittsville, Maryland. It was a two year, very slow viral marketing strategy in a digital age where fact checking wasn't instantaneous as it is now and the hype built like an urban legend. The home video look of the film just fed into it all and it released at just the right time to take advantage of it all.
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FluffyAd6797 Mar 24, 2026 +1
Great point. When me and my dad watched it together, he told me how bad it scared him and everybody b/c of the hysteria it created through that outreach. Masterclass in marketing
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FluffyAd6797 Mar 24, 2026 +2
Not sure why the text went through like this but the bullet is supposed to be a plus lol
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revolution_ex Mar 24, 2026 +1
Bullet point happened cause of reddit formatting ig
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non_clever_username Mar 24, 2026 +2
Face/Off is a ridiculous B-movie (or Bollywood even) script that somehow snagged two A-list actors and a healthy budget. There had to have been so much coke involved in green lighting that. E: not bagging on it, that movie is entertaining as shit
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revolution_ex Mar 25, 2026 +1
thanks for reminding me I gonna watch that
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Legitimate_Mud_8295 Mar 25, 2026 +2
Napoleon Dynamite. It's way too weird for how mainstream it was
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Crosspaws Mar 24, 2026 +4
Skinamarink - it's just different. I still don't know if I am gladni watched it or wasted my time lol
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JTOC1969 Mar 24, 2026 +2
Just recently watched Licorice Pizza. I know I'm late to the party on this one. But I really liked it because it was so unlike a modern Hollywood movie: a cast who actually look like real people, not Hollywood starlets who've had everything on their faces "fixed" at age 20; a story that doesn't slavishly follow the "Save the Cat" blueprint; prioritizing interesting characters over driving the plot home. It meanders all over the place, but I felt like I just could have kept watching it for another two hours.
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mithridateseupator Mar 24, 2026 +1
>Like Spider-Man. One of the most popular characters in the world, yet it’s taken this long to get a proper fourth film in a series. You’d expect studios to keep those going non-stop, so the gap makes it feel a bit unusual. There have been 10 spiderman movies in the past 25 years. Thats an insane number, yet you're weirded out by it being too low?
1
revolution_ex Mar 25, 2026 +1
hey I meant more as in, they couldn't reach till 4th entry in single continuity is not that enough reason?
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mithridateseupator Mar 25, 2026 +1
Simple reason: Peter parker is a teenager and actors can't stop aging.
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revolution_ex Mar 25, 2026 +1
that's not the reason why they never reached toll 4th movie look up the production stuff
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Jom_Bots Mar 25, 2026 +1
City of God feels like this the protagonist is a side character in the story
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sheetskees Mar 24, 2026 -2
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie A theatrical follow-up release to a 2 season Canadian tv show which itself was a follow up to a web series. It actually garnering a decent amount of buzz and becoming a relative success in this day and age is wild. The movie itself is also incredibly creative, zany, and hilarious.
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[deleted] Mar 24, 2026 -1
[removed]
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Random_Critical Mar 24, 2026 +2
AI comment
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borazine Mar 24, 2026 -1
> The Avengers “How now, brown cow?”
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ELMUNECODETACOMA Mar 24, 2026 +3
The OG Avengers \_was\_ an anomaly. How the hell do you have that cast and a $60m budget (1988 dollars) and make such an absolute waste of celluloid?
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