Recently, Reddit user u/serial_Imposter115 posed the question, "In your opinion, what film had the most promising premise for a story, only to be completely squandered and fall flat on delivery?" to the folks in r/movies. And to say they did not hold back would be an understatement. Check it out:
Note: Spoilers ahead.
1. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
"That intro of Wolverine and his brother fighting across America’s wars throughout history was a fantastic idea and should’ve been the whole movie. The first 30 minutes of a superhero wet squad doing commando missions during the Cold War was also dripping with potential."
2. Passengers (2016)
"If they had just made it into more of a psychological thriller from the Jennifer Lawrence character’s perspective and made Chris Pratt the villain, it could have been brilliant."
"They could have taken this in a few interesting directions but failed. The way they end up shoehorning a situation where him waking her up was the only way the passengers could survive made me want to punch the screen."
3. Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
"Could have been a great sci-fi horror if it had been fleshed out."
"I felt like they tried to mash together a couple of different ideas that didn’t leave enough room for the ideas to grow. It wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but it was disappointing because it had so much potential that it didn’t quite reach."
4. Downsizing (2017)
"I feel like I was conned after the first act of that movie."
"I’ve posted this before, but you cannot convince me it isn’t true: Someone knocked a pile of scripts off a table and accidentally put half of two different ones back together."
5. The Dark Tower (2017)
"Awesome series with incredible characters, and they got great actors to be in it, but then it was...I dunno if even studio meddling can explain all of it. It turned into something you wish would be more forgettable. It feels as if they never even gave it a chance to be good; they thought it would fail, so they didn't want to invest in making it worth even watching, and guaranteed it would fail."
6. Renfield (2023)
"This is a good recent case of promising concept/poor execution for me. I think Dracula's manservant secretly going to support groups for his codependency issues is a fantastic comedy premise that should basically write itself, but the style of the movie totally undermines the inherent humor, IMO. Nicolas Cage brought his A game, though."
7. Tomorrowland (2015)
"Such a waste!"
"It was so disappointing. They showed the audience this fantastic place, and when they finally got there, it looked like an abandoned theme park. If it had looked like an abandoned Tomorrowland instead, it might have worked, but the director couldn't even be bothered."
8. In Time (2011)
"In Time had a concept that could have made it an all-time sci-fi classic, and it was just so poorly cast and executed that it doesn’t even get cable airings."
9. Hancock (2008)
"The first half of that movie had the right idea. But then it shifted hard for the second half and got up its own butt."
"Evidently, Hancock's hodgepodge plot is because it's allegedly two separate scripts combined into one movie."
10. Alien vs. Predator (2004)
"The concept should be a license to print money. Yet every time it’s attempted, the result is a huge disappointment."
11. Army of the Dead (2021)
"Heist movie meets zombie movie, set in Vegas. How could this not be fun? But the movie insists on not having any fun whatsoever. There's nothing clever about the heist part, it's basically just 'get the safecracker to the safe,' and the zombie part is as bland as can be. I think the movie is perfectly typified by the chainsaw one of the crew members carries around, only for him to never use it during the whole movie. It promises fun but never delivers. Even trying and failing would be something, but the movie never even tries."
12. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
"Could have been great if they'd stuck with the source. There are enough characters to use, and they STILL added one not in the book."
13. The Purge (2013)
"An excellent premise; in the hands of a better storyteller, we would have gotten a better, thought-provoking movie franchise."
14. The Invention of Lying (2009)
"Excellent premise and first act. Then the protagonist becomes the most powerful person on the planet and continues being a sad loser. Ricky Gervais had a great idea, but unfortunately, he apparently doesn't know what a character arc is (or how to properly write a three-act structure)."
"My issue with that film is that it mixes up being unable to lie with being horribly open and frank. I suppose that was the hook they hung the comedy on. But it just took me out of the film."
—u/themrrouge
15. World War Z (2013)
"It's such an interesting concept (from the book) that allows a movie of vignettes or different people surviving a zombie outbreak. We could have had the beginning of the outbreak multiple times (which is always the most interesting part), as well as more interesting storytelling about the state of the world. Instead, we got a really horribly made action movie where everything is big and dumb."
16. Yesterday (2019)
"The premise, although kind of one-joke, is pretty priceless. And it works for a while, but then they mess it up at the end to the point where it legit made me angry."
17. Cowboys vs. Aliens (2011)
"How do you fuck up what is basically a Tremors movie with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford? I still don't know."
18. Jupiter Ascending (2015)
"Immortal space capitalist siblings ruining their empire because they found their dead mom's doppelgänger and they all have mommy issues is such a good idea. It’s even better that the doppelgänger is just a normal, working-class woman. But man, the execution is terrible."
19. Bright (2017)
"Couldn't decide what tone the movie wanted. It felt as if we were watching three different movies spliced together."
20. Mortal Engines (2018)
"The world-building in the book is amazing, and there are storylines that shed light on it. But the movie had to go and reduce it to the most sterile stuff I've ever seen. So many missed opportunities here. The efficiency of big cities and the reverse side of it in London slums, leading nicely to that engineers-versus-historians standoff. Valentine is torn between being a father and being a coward, which would work very well with the true ending. Hell, even giving more of an overview of the great hunting grounds to give a reason for why it was a compelling idea to do what London was doing."
21. Finally, literally every DCEU movie.
"IMO, they should have established the universe by starting with all the minor/smaller characters first. They could have built the multiple stories/perspectives of all the various characters with all of them dealing with their own problems, all while Superman and Zod are having their showdown. I liked the way they show the fight at the start of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; you can barely see them, but you can feel their power and destruction. Suicide Squad could have been the first movie to establish how the world works, all while they are trying to accomplish a task as Metropolis crumbles around them...so much written material available to use, yet they decided to dumb/dull everything down."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.