20 Movies With Great Premises That Totally Biffed the Execution

Some movies are doomed from the start, with absolutely nothing at their cores that was ever going to be interesting or at least fun. “Cats introduce themselves for two hours.” “Adam Sandler goes on vacation.” “The winners of American Idol go on vacation.” But others feel like tragic wastes of opportunity. At some point, someone had an idea so good that you can’t help but wonder what could have been in less idiotic hands.

For Redditor AdrianVeidt19, it was 2019’s Brightburn. “I wasn’t expecting (an) Oscar nominee, but damn, I was excited,” they recently told r/Movies. “Superman origins, but (his) parents are not Jonathan and Martha? More realistic take? Great.” But the movie turned out to be “such a meh. It was weirdly cut and directed, scenes were meh, looked extremely cheap. It could have been so much better.” They then asked, “What’s your biggest ‘oh my god what a great premise — oh my god what a shitty execution’ movie?” and Reddit yearned for the masterpieces that never were.