5 Times Hollywood's 'Experts' Were SO Confidently, Hilariously Wrong About A Movie

George Lucas Was So Sure Star Wars Would Flop, He Left The Country For The Premiere

Before Star Wars opened in 1977, the mood inside 20th Century Fox was borderline funereal. George Lucas himself was so convinced it was going to bomb that he skipped the premiere entirely and fled to Hawaii just to avoid hearing the bad news in person.

Critics Called Titanic A Guaranteed Disaster Before Anyone Had Even Seen It

With its ballooning budget and delayed release, Titanic was treated as a punchline months before it hit theaters — one Los Angeles Times critic wrote that "Cameron's overweening pride has come close to capsizing this project", and even James Cameron admitted he thought he was "headed for disaster," saying, "We labored the last six months on Titanic in the absolute knowledge that the studio would lose $100 million. It was a certainty." Instead, it became the first film ever to cross a billion dollars worldwide and held the all-time box office crown for over a decade.

Roger Ebert Called Fight Club 'Macho Porn' — Now It's A Certified Cult Classic

When Fight Club dropped in 1999, Roger Ebert didn't hold back, writing that "'Fight Club' is the most frankly and cheerfully fascist big-star movie since 'Death Wish,' a celebration of violence in which the heroes write themselves a license to drink, smoke, screw and beat one another up" and dismissing it as "macho porn." Decades later the film is widely regarded as one of the defining movies of its decade, proving even legendary critics can miss a future classic on release.

They Called It 'Disney's Folly' — Then It Built The Whole Empire

When Walt Disney announced he was making a 90-minute cartoon, the industry didn't just doubt him, it mocked him: "Hollywood laughed. Variety predicted failure, critics called it 'Disney's Folly,' and industry insiders were certain no audience would sit through a feature-length cartoon." Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs went on to become the highest-grossing film released up to that point, and the profits literally built the Burbank studio lot Disney still uses today.

The Shawshank Redemption Bombed So Hard In Theaters, It Was Basically Forgotten

Despite a star-studded cast and glowing test screenings, Shawshank opened wide in October 1994 and pulled in a measly $2.4 million from nearly 1,000 theaters, leaving it at No. 13 for the weekend box office, and by the time it left theaters in November, the movie had only made $16 million, far short of recouping its $25 million budget. Today it sits at No. 1 on IMDb's Top 250, proof that a movie's opening weekend and its legacy can be two completely different stories.