{"id":2255,"date":"2009-12-28T14:13:34","date_gmt":"2009-12-28T14:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/\/?p=2255"},"modified":"2009-12-28T14:13:34","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T14:13:34","slug":"biggest-sleeper-hits-of-the-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/biggest-sleeper-hits-of-the-decade\/","title":{"rendered":"Biggest Sleeper Hits of the Decade"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"paranormal-activity-dwrks2\"

Sleepers come seemingly out of nowhere. They are the little films that confound expectations, attracting enthusiastic audiences that happily spread the word. Sometimes they come from the studio system, produced almost as an afterthought, but mostly they’re produced well off the radar. On occasion, they upend the established order by opening at No. 1 at the boxoffice. But more typically they start small, building over time, hanging on in theaters as more heralded movies come and go. Often the filmmakers involved meet with initial rejection before wildly triumphing in the end. In the process, they expose the limitations of Hollywood’s conventional thinking about what makes a hit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

10. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (Sony Pictures Classics, 2000)<\/div>\n
Budget: $17 million<\/div>\n
Domestic gross: $128 million<\/div>\n

10. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”<\/strong> (Sony Pictures Classics, 2000)
\nBudget:<\/strong> $17 million
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $128 million<\/span><\/p>\n

8. “Slumdog Millionaire”<\/strong> (Fox Searchlight, 2008)
\nBudget:<\/strong> $15 million
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $141.3 million<\/span><\/p>\n

7. March of the Penguins<\/strong> (Warner Independent\/National Geographic, 2005)
\nBudget:<\/strong> $8 million
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $77.4 million<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Jackass: The Movie<\/strong> (Paramount, 2002)
\nBudget:<\/strong> $5 million
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $64.3 million<\/span><\/p>\n

5.\u00a0“Juno”<\/a><\/strong> (Fox Searchlight, 2007)
\nBudget:<\/strong> $7.5 million
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $143.5 million<\/span><\/p>\n

4. “Saw”<\/strong> (Lionsgate, 2004)
\nBudget:<\/strong> $1.2 million
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $55.2 million<\/span><\/p>\n

3. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”<\/strong> (IFC, 2002)
\nBudget:<\/strong> $5 million
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $241.4 million<\/span><\/p>\n

9. “Diary of a Mad Black Woman”<\/strong> (Lionsgate, 2005)
\nBudget:<\/strong> $5.5 million
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $50.4 million<\/span><\/p>\n

2. “Napoleon Dynamite”<\/strong> (Fox Searchlight\/Paramount 2004)
\nBudget:<\/strong> $400,000
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $44.5 million<\/span><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0“Paranormal Activity”<\/strong> (Paramount, 2009)
\nBudget: <\/strong>$15,000
\nDomestic gross:<\/strong> $107.6 million<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The full story and video clips from The Hollywood Reporter <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a list of the biggest sleeper hits of the last ten years. What patterns do we see? Only two could be classified as drama, and both feature foreign locales and are about foreign nationals. Two are documentaries (one is a comedic practical joke video). Four are comedies. And two are horror films. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[25,26,198,921,922,27,28,30,208,31,874,923,759,32,924,915,33,925,926,34,927,928,35,36,37,38,39,40,226,41,42],"class_list":["post-2255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies-character-development-screenwriting-screenplay-script-blog","tag-character","tag-characters","tag-comedy","tag-crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon","tag-diary-of-a-mad-black-woman","tag-emotional-toolbox","tag-etb","tag-film","tag-filmmaking","tag-films","tag-hollywood","tag-jackass","tag-juno","tag-laurie-hutzler","tag-march-of-the-penguins","tag-morgan-freeman","tag-movies","tag-my-big-fat-greek-wedding","tag-napoleon-dynamite","tag-nine-character-types","tag-paranormal-activity","tag-saw","tag-screenplay","tag-screenplays","tag-screenwriting","tag-script","tag-scripts","tag-scriptwriting","tag-slumdog-millionaire","tag-tv","tag-writing"],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-768x576.jpg",768,576,true],"large":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"ttshowcase_normal":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",125,94,false],"ttshowcase_small":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",75,56,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"Image Size 500x500":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",500,375,false],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-300x400.jpg",300,400,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-600x450.jpg",600,450,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-100x100.jpg",100,100,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Laurie Hutzler","author_link":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Here's a list of the biggest sleeper hits of the last ten years. What patterns do we see? Only two could be classified as drama, and both feature foreign locales and are about foreign nationals. Two are documentaries (one is a comedic practical joke video). Four are comedies. And two are horror films.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}