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Millions (2004)
The Director: Danny Boyle
The Surprise: Choose life. Choose scandalous classics about heroin. Choose innovative 'fast zombie' horror. Choose…. a family movie about kids finding a wodge of wonga.
Is It Really So Strange? The bag of cash is the giveaway; it's a motif that runs all the way back to Boyle's film debut, Shallow Grave . Since then, the mellower director has found further fame at the lighter end of the spectrum, both on screen ( Slumdog Millionaire ) and in real life (the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony).
Flash Gordon (1980)
The Director: Mike Hodges
The Surprise: They didn't get much grittier than Hodges, the World In Action veteran who brought his punchy style into cinema with Get Carter …and then was hired by Dino De Laurentiis to helm his camper-than-camp riposte to Star Wars .
Is It Really So Strange? Flash wasn't Hodges' first foray into sci-fi, given that he'd already made little seen thriller The Terminal Man . Nor would it be his last, although perhaps it's best not to mention Morons From Outer Space . Since then, though, he's been on more traditional territory with Croupier and I'll Sleep When I'm Dead .
Pineapple Express (2008)
The Director: David Gordon Green
The Surprise: "The new Malick," they called Green, after his lyrical indie dramas George Washington and All The Real Girls . "The new Apatow," they called him, after uniting with Seth Rogen and James Franco for this stoner buddy comedy.
Is It Really So Strange? Pineapple Express started one of the least expected volte-faces in modern cinema, as Green dived wholeheartedly into mainstream comedy with Your Highness and The Sitter . The recent Prince Avalanche feels like an attempt to bridge the gap with his indie roots, while the forthcoming Joe is being heralded as a full-blown return to drama.
The Wiz (1978)
The Director: Sidney Lumet
The Surprise: With Diana Ross as Dorothy, Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow and Richard Pryor as the Wiz, this urban retelling of The Wizard Of Oz needed an appropriate director. Unfortunately, Saturday Night Live director John Badham bailed, so the gig went to Sidney Lumet, a specialist in intense dramas with zero musical experience.
Is It Really So Strange? It's a slightly different meaning of 'urban,' but Lumet at least had form making films in New York - the Wiz's replacement for Kansas. And, at the time, Lumet's last three films had won 6 Oscars from 22 nominations, so the producers gambled on prestige.
Lorenzo's Oil (1992)
The Director: George Miller
The Surprise: Aussie Miller made his name transforming Australia into the post-apocalyptic hellhole of the Mad Max films, experience that - it has to be said - was of absolutely no use whatsoever in preparing for this true-life weepie about parents seeking a cure for their son's rare illness.
Is It Really So Strange? You want strange? Miller obviously wants to mess with our expectations. He followed this by producing and writing Babe and directing its sequel Pig In The City before becoming a fully-fledged kids' movie auteur with Happy Feet . And now he's only gone and abandoned that career to make a fourth Mad Max film.
Interiors (1978)
The Director: Woody Allen
The Surprise: No Woody on screen. Even fewer laughs. How did we get from Oscar-winning laugh-a-thon Annie Hall to this ultra-depressing family drama in just a year?
Is It Really So Strange? Allen never hid his love of Ingmar Bergman's austere cinema, and Annie Hall was flecked with melancholy compared to his "earlier, funnier" films. Interiors nowadays looks like the prototype for the director's substantial dramatic output, running right up to last year's Blue Jasmine .
It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
The Director: Stanley Kramer
The Surprise: You can only be serious for so long. Kramer had positioned himself as Hollywood's conscience with films like The Defiant Ones and Judgement At Nuremberg , but his inner comic exploded with this exuberant, all-star epic comedy.
Is It Really So Strange? Put it this way - the modern equivalent would be Steve McQueen making an Inbetweeners movie. Sure enough, it proved a one-off for Kramer, who was back on more familiar territory for Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?
Ghost (1990)
The Director: Jerry Zucker
The Surprise: That Jerry Zucker, he's a funny guy. Airplane , Top Secret , LOLZ all the way. His new one's about a ghost who comes back to help his girlfriend, that's gonna be hilarious, right? Right?
Is It Really So Strange? Behind every comic genius is a frustrated dramatist. Zucker had another crack at being serious with Arthurian saga First Knight , before reverting to familiar ways with Rat Race and (as a producer) Friends With Benefits .
A Fistful Of Dollars (1964)
The Director: Sergio Leone
The Surprise: The Italian Leone, becoming a go-to guy for swords 'n' sandals epics after The Last Days Of Pompeii and The Colossus Of Rhodes , decides that he fancies making a Western. So he nabs the plot of Kurosawa's Yojimbo and casts the bloke off Rawhide to give a touch of American authenticity.
Is It Really So Strange? A huge part of the Italian film industry was devoted to churning out "me, too" clones of Hollywood movies, and Westerns were just another genre to pilfer. The difference here is that Leone found a unique style (deadpan, violent and satirical) and stuck with it, making his early films feel like the aberration.
For Love Of The Game (1999)
The Director: Sam Raimi
The Surprise: Kevin Costner baseball movies are common enough. You just don’t expect them to be made by the guy who unleashed the Evil Dead on the world.
Is It Really So Strange? While it is easily his least characteristic film, this continued Raimi's dalliance with more mainstream fare that started with hit thriller A Simple Plan , and culminated in him directing the mega-bucks Spider-man trilogy. Also, Raimi shot a scene featuring his trademark Oldsmobile Delta 88 (although, sadly, it didn't make the final cut).
