This top is a life lesson. When no one believes in you, keep believing. Finally, if it’s really a shitty idea like when my little cousin wanted to sell ice cream on the Moon, then you have to give up, but sometimes you shouldn’t stop at the first criticisms. The proof with a few examples of projects announced as flops that have managed to outsmart the odds and become ultra-popular. Biliv in your drimz.
1. ZEvent 2022
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For the 2022 streamers’ charity meeting, some streamers with large communities were not invited. It was enough to tickle the fans of the latter who announced the ZEvent 2022 as a flop on Twitter. A “flop” which will finally have exceeded the donation record of last year with 10,182,126 donations. A huge success, then.
2. Pokemon
Considering how the thing has been a hit for more than 20 years, it’s hard to imagine that anyone could have doubted its success, and yet it was. When Satoshi Tajiri offered the game to Nintendo, Nintendo didn’t believe it at all and didn’t understand the principle but allowed Tajiri to develop it anyway. Result, after a timid start in Japan, the game has grown and smashed everything by arriving on the Western market, even boosting sales of the Gameboy. The rest, we know.
3.Fortnite
What if I told you that the video game press found Fortnite to be an average and overly complicated game when it launched? What if I told you that she found the other battle royales of the moment much more interesting? You would find it crazy given the interplanetary success of the game for several years now. Well, that’s what happened. Like what, you don’t always have to listen to the press.
4.Squid Game
In 2021, Squid Game became the most watched series of all time on Netflix. It’s nothing. It’s not even nothing at all. And it’s especially crazy when you know that Dong-hyuk Hwang, its creator, was refused funding for his project by lots of producers who considered his story too violent and too absurd. “People who participate in a deadly game for money? Anything. » Except that we, the public, we don’t care if it’s anything, and we don’t care if it’s violent (on the contrary). So when Netflix put some money in the project and released the series, we all loved it.
5.Harry Potter
Denied a dozen times by editors, JK Rowling’s saga finally saw the light of day in 1997. But even there, it was far from won. The first bookstores to distribute the first volume didn’t see the potential of the thing at all and didn’t promote it at all. For them, it was a children’s book like any other, and it wasn’t going to work. The first few weeks proved them right, then everything got carried away with word of mouth. From “little children’s book”, Harry Potter went on to “global success,” and no one saw it coming.
6. Star Wars
Georges Lucas’ baby was rejected by several studios, including its current owner Disney (ironic, eh?) But Lucas, encouraged by his friend Steven Spielberg, did not give up and ended up producing the greatest SF saga of all the time. 100 points for Luc Marcheciel.
7. Instagram, stories and reels
Insta, a small box of 15 people, is bought by Facebook for 1 billion, and no one understands the idea. Finally, it’s a box. Facebook decides to put stories in Insta, and no one understands why they take the idea from Snapchat. Finally, the stories are a hit. Facebook then decides to take up the concept of Tiktok with the reels, and everyone expects it to suck. Finally, it still works. Instagram is a real prediction machine.
8.Snapchat
In the beginning, we all used Snapchat, even though we thought “it sucks when messages disappear”, then we left the social network deciding that it was over. And we really believed in it. Except that instead of flopping, Snapchat was invaded by the next generation until it became the favorite messenger of our little brothers, little sisters and little cousins. Now in the street, the younger ones (than us) don’t ask anymore “Do you have an 06? » but “Do you have a snap? »and we meanwhile feel old.
9. Manifest
The series, which tells the story of passengers on an air flight who disappeared for 5 years, was broadcast on TF1 in prime time but stopped for lack of an audience. She never took off (mdr). Suddenly, no one understood why she landed (re-lol) a few months ago on Netflix, and even less why she suddenly met a huge audience. Sometimes all it takes is a big red N on a black background…
10. Back to the Future
We end with THE film that the producers did not see coming. Hold on tight: the scenario of Back to the future has been turned down nearly 40 times by studios. They felt that the story written by Bob Gale did not hold water, and some, like Disney, thought that this story of a mother who falls in love with her son would shock America too much. In the end, who was shocked? Nobody. And did it work? A little my nephew.
