5

James Gunn Wrote Both Guardians Of The Galaxy AND Scooby-Doo

Marvel Studios

The 2002 live-action Scooby-Doo movie makes absolutely no sense because, well, who was its intended audience? Anyone young enough to enjoy watching a live-action Matthew Lillard interacting with a (frankly terrifying) CGI dog would have been born 20 years too late to be familiar with the franchise.

Warner Bros.
In real life, he's holding a green bag of ping pong balls.

4

The Owls Of Ga'Hoole Was Directed By Zack Snyder

Warner Bros.

Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga'Hoole is an animated family movie about a young talking owl caught in the war between two warring factions of other talking owls. Kind of a kid's version of Lord Of The Rings with a primarily avian cast.

Warner Bros.
Frowldo Baggins.

It's not the worst idea for a kids movie we've ever heard, but it did have the weirdest choice for director: Zack "Movies Are Just A Series Of Slow-Motion Murders" Snyder. And this isn't something Snyder did in his youth before he found his voice. It was less than a year after he made Watchmen -- a movie in which, among other things, Jeffrey Dean Morgan murders a pregnant woman. Actually, nothing about Snyder directing a computer-generated cartoon makes sense when you compare it to any movie in his filmography ...

Universal Pictures
Dawn of the Dead

Warner Bros.
300

Warner Bros.
Sucker Punch

3

Gnomeo & Juliet Was Elton John's Passion Project

Ernst Vikne/Wiki Commons

Gnomeo & Juliet sounds like a fake movie idea a hack studio executive would come up with in a Saturday Night Live skit. "It's a retelling of Romeo And Juliet with ... wait for it ... GARDEN GNOMES! No, YOU have a cocaine problem!" But because this is Hollywood, an idea that sounds like the result of having scraped two subbasements past the bottom of the barrel was given a budget that could pay a voice cast which included James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, Patrick Stewart, and Ozzy fucking Osbourne.

The result earned a collective "Eh, it's fine" from critics (55 percent on Rotten Tomatoes -- almost doubling Scooby Doo's score!) and only, uh, $200 million from audiences (seriously, people, kids will pretty much watch anything). If you're wondering: No, they didn't have the star-crossed lovers die at the end.

Walt Disney
Pussies.

So who truly came up with this? A focus group survey? An algorithm which automatically generates marketable movie premises from public domain properties? A new studio exec who happened to be the nephew of the CEO? Try music legend and sunglasses aficionado Elton John. He not only composed some of the music for Gnomeo & Juliet, but was also one of the producers, and he spent 11 goddamned years of his life trying to get the project off the ground.

2

Famous Geeks Have Secretly Been Writing Huge Blockbusters For Years

Marvel Television

X-Men and X2 were arguably the first movies to set off the modern superhero craze. Then, with X-Men: The Last Stand, something went horribly wrong, and instead of a powerful, moving finale to the series, we got Vinnie Jones quoting a racist meme. What happened? Well, for one thing, the third movie wasn't written by Solid Snake.

In Hideo Kojima's famous Metal Gear games, David Hayter voices the main character Solid Snake, as well as his father (named Naked Snake, because Kojima does not give a fuck). With a bizarre resume like that, Hayter was a natural fit to write a movie about a mutant Canadian in desperate need of a manicure. So that's what he did, ultimately penning Wolverine's first cinematic appearance and its sequel. Hayter would then write Zack Snyder's Watchmen, so if you're one of those people who complained about the movie's lack of a giant squid, you can blame him for that.

Warner Bros.
Hayters gonna hayte.

1

Toy Story (And Pixar) Looked Doomed ... Until Joss Whedon Came Along

Marvel Studios

Fact: Toy Story is one of the greatest animated films ever. Also fact: The first draft of Toy Story was one of the worst things ever. Don't take our word for it; when Disney executives saw the initial excerpts of the film, they hated it so much that the entire movie was shut down until someone could come in and punch up the script.

Pixar
Or at least make Woody less nightmare-inducing.

Enter Joss Whedon, the man who would eventually helm Buffy, Firefly, and The Avengers, who was at the time working as a script doctor -- i.e. the guy who got paid to do last-minute emergency fixes on blockbusters. Disney knew that the issue was fairly obvious, but not easy to fix: The main characters in this whimsical children's tale about talking toys were fucking assholes. Woody was a sniping, bitter jerk who was constantly trying to take down Buzz (a pompous dick) out of petty jealousy.

So Disney sent Whedon to Pixar (his hiring was not Pixar's idea), and he took over a script that was, in his words, "in shambles." Whedon pitched them on turning Toy Story into a buddy movie, making it so that both characters were relatable, fun, and above all else, flawed without being total shitheels.

"And switch around that 'You've Got A Fiend In Me' song."

It's true that Whedon was just one part of the process, but it could also be argued that he helped give the movie the heart and personality that not only launched the Pixar brand, but also created a formula they have used to generate nearly $10 billion in box office across 16 films. Oh, and several times that in merchandising -- Cars alone has sold $8 billion worth of toys and other bullshit. Think about it: That same "buddy comedy" dynamic turns up between Marlin and Dory from Finding Nemo, Mike and Sully from Monsters, Inc, Lightning and Mater from Cars, and Carl and Russell from Up.

So yeah, sometimes studio meddling works. If they hire the right guy.

Tara Marie writes a lot.

For more strange projects from unexpected sources, check out 6 Famous Movies Made By The Last Person You'd Expect and 6 Hit Songs Written By the Last Person You'd Expect.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out 4 Bulls#!% Facts That Movies Love To Quote, and other videos you won't see on the site!

Also, follow us on Facebook, and let's be best friends forever.