Movies Based On Unexpected Things

Since the dawn of cinema, film studios have looked to unusual places for new ideas for their movies. Early films were often based on real events, or from classic novels like "Oliver Twist," "A Christmas Carol," and "Robinson Crusoe." As the decades went on, Hollywood filmmakers expanded their source material to include popular stage plays, and eventually remakes of older movies. By the 1970s, movies were being based on television shows, and by the 1990s it was comic books and video games. These days, it seems almost anything can form the basis of a major motion picture.

Look no further than 2021, where no less than four major releases were based on comic books, three based on video games, and countless novel adaptations. But every once in a while, Hollywood tries to find an oddball source to mine from for a new movie. Board games, toys, trading cards, and lately even internet memes have become the basis for new films. 

We've put together a list of movies with the most bizarre, unusual, or otherwise unconventional source material. Some wound up being good movies, others duds. Read on to see if one of your favorites makes the list.

It may seem a bit more commonplace now, with films like "Battleship" and "Ouija" being major motion pictures, but in 1984, the idea of a film based on a family board game likely seemed even more preposterous. Still, nobody has done it better since the original: "Clue," written and directed by Jonathan Lynn. The concept of taking a murder mystery game and fleshing it out into a farcical slapstick comedy whodunit seems like a recipe for disaster, but by embracing the inherent ridiculousness of the concept, it managed to deliver a fun and wholly unique film. What helped was the talented cast of the day's best comedic performers, including Tim Curry, Martin Mull, Christopher Lloyd, Lesley Ann Warren, Michael McKean, and Madeleine Kahn.

Infamous for its three different endings, the film found clever ways to make use of the silly in-game character names like "Colonel Mustard," "Mrs. White" and Mr. Green." It crafted a story that had the butler (Curry) ferreting out the killer by proposing multiple solutions involving secret passageways, a lead pipe, a candlestick, and other key elements pulled directly from the original game. An offbeat mix of "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Blues Brothers," it wasn't well-loved in its day — with Roger Ebert awarding it just two stars and knocking it for a "thin" screenplay — but has over the years become a true '80s cult classic.

From Hollywood's "How Ridiculous Can We Get?" files comes Sony's 2017 film, "The Emoji Movie." More or less a generic kids film about friendship, specialness, and other family-friendly life lessons, it uses the concept of cell phone emoji text icons to populate and visual its unique CGI world. It tells the story of Gene, a mult-expression emoji inside a smartphone world called Textopolis who travels through different apps (read: paid product placement) to find a way to become like everyone else and have just one unique face. Despite its cynical source material, the film managed to recruit an all-star cast, including Patrick Stewart, James Corden, Anna Faris, Christina Aguilera, and Sofia Vergara.

Savaged by critics, it infamously debuted to a zero percent score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes (that has since improved to a modest 6%). The truth is that it's really just a forgettable animated adventure, like any number of films released every year direct to video or streaming. And to its credit, its use of the "emoji" for its world-building helped it stand out and attract the kind of attention it probably wouldn't have otherwise.

Horror films are known for being "inspired" by real life events. Classics like "The House on Haunted Hill," "The Amityville Horror" and even "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" were said to be based on true stories. But in 2018, a horror film was released based on an urban legend sparked by a viral internet meme, one that unfortunately became its own true story. The low budget indie slasher movie "Slender Man" was inspired by the creepypasta that first debuted in June of 2009, the result of an online competition on comedy website Something Awful to create a modern day myth. Based around a supernatural being that sometimes appears in old photographs in the form of a faceless man in a black and white suit and tie, the movie told the story of three girls who seek to summon the other worldly being when their friend goes missing — to horrifying results.

Once again, the resulting film was less than spectacular, resulting in a critical drubbing, but some blame a real life murder in Wisconsin inspired by the same viral meme for the film being rewritten, and its intensity softened. With the real life killings, also by a pair of young girls, happening two years before the film was made, and the meme itself already out-of-date, it makes one wonder what the studio was thinking by making it in the first place.

After commercial success of the third "Die Hard" film, "Die Hard With A Vengeance," in 1993, it seemed like a fourth film would have been a no-brainer — but it took nearly a decade and a half to get it off the ground. With a roster of up-and-coming stars that saw aging action hero Bruce Willis joined by Timothy Olyphant, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Justin Long, and Maggie Q, "Live Free Or Die Hard" gave John McClane a new terrorist plot to foil. This time, it was a diabolical cyber criminal who hacked into government computers in the hopes of disrupting the nation's infrastructure. But whereas the first two films in the series had been based on a pair of thriller novels and an unrelated screenplay, the fourth installment took its story from an article in Wired Magazine.

Written in 1997 by journalist John Carlin, the article posited a near future where supercomputers and information networks could become weaponized by terrorists. While the article speculated that warfare of the future might eschew rockets and missiles and instead be fought on a digital battleground, "Live Free Or Die Hard" was an over-the-top action movie, and still included plenty of explosions and traditional weaponry.

One of Hollywood's biggest franchises ever, "The Fast & The Furious" series features some of the most well-known names in the action genre: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Gal Gadot, and the late Paul Walker. Over the years the series of car films have gotten bigger, bolder, and more explosive (literally). It's easy to forget that when it all started in 2001 though, it was a simple story of a cop (Paul Walker) sent undercover to put an end to a notorious criminal and infamous street racer (Vin Diesel). It may have started as "Point Break" style action thriller, but each subsequent film has added more stars, more twists and turns, and more over-the-top action.

But back in 2001 when the first film launched, many didn't realize it was based on a magazine article in Vibe Magazine called "Racer X." The article explored the secret world of underground racing. In 2015, ahead of the release of the seventh installment in the series, Yahoo News interviewed the article's author, Ken Li. "The strange thing about the plot of the movie," he said, "was it was actually closer to the kind of story I was aiming to write with the article. I was trying to uncover some car theft ring, and edited that part out of the story."

We talk a lot about so-called all-star casts, but Tim Burton's 1996 special effects extravaganza "Mars Attacks" takes the cake in that regard. The tale of big-brained aliens from outer space arriving on Earth and vaporizing anything and everything was packed to the gills with A-Listers. The wall-to-wall stars included Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Jack Nicholson, Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Natalie Portman, Pam Grier, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, and Jack Black. But rather than a remake of a '50s b-movie, "Mars Attacks" was adapted from a series of nickel-a-pack trading cards published by trading card giant Topps in 1962. The 55-card series told the story of the invasion in individual vignettes, filled with imagery deemed graphic and controversial for its time. Burton, however, chose not to capture the same level of serious brutality — opting for a sillier, light-hearted affair.

Netting mixed reviews, the film failed to deliver big box office results. The disappointment seemingly put a halt to Topps' card series and comics: No new sets came after the movie debuted in 1995, and the comic book series came to a close the same year. But you can't keep a good Martian down, and new comics and cards returned over decade later.