7 Crazy Movie Premises That Actually Worked

The article argues that far-fetched film premises can create room for creative risk and work when filmmakers execute them well. It introduces the idea through *Whalefall*, about a young man swallowed by a whale, then points to earlier films that made unusual concepts compelling.

It begins its examples with *Dr. Strangelove*, a 1964 political satire about an unauthorised nuclear attack, and *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*, set in a world where cartoon characters live alongside humans. *Dr. Strangelove* cost $1.8 million and earned more than $9 million at the US box office; it later entered the National Film Registry as one of its first 25 selections in 1989. The article notes that many other films could also have featured, making this a small sample rather than a definitive ranking.