Sleeper hit

A sleeper hit, also known as a surprise hit, sleep-killer or sleeper, refers to a film, book, single, album, TV show, or video game that gains a sudden and unexpected success or recognition. Sleeper hits often grow in popularity over time as people promote them through word-of-mouth marketing.

Sleeper films

Some sleeper hits achieve unexpected success at the box office immediately upon their initial theatrical release, but this is not typical. Because these films are not expected to do particularly well they often receive little promotion or advertising and take time to register with the public. Typically the sleeper hit relies instead on positive "word of mouth" as well as the publicity generated by awards and good reviews. Two good examples of these are Mike Judge's Office Space and Idiocracy, both of which quickly became cult classics. The movie Caddyshack is another example.

Thus sleeper films often attract the most viewers in the latter part of their theatrical releases. There's Something About Mary had a small release in 1998, but gained notoriety through word of mouth, and grew to top the weekend box office on its 8th week of release. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a classic example, having been released in only approximately 100 theaters, grossing half a million its first week, but through word of mouth stayed in the theaters till it grossed $240 million domestically, becoming the highest grossing romantic comedy of all-time. Similarly, the 2010 film How to Train Your Dragon was considered a relative disappointment when its premiere wide release box office gross was smaller than expected, but was later reassessed as a major success when its theatrical run proved unexpectedly strong over a longer term to more than compensate. Studios have become more adept at promoting sleeper success at the box office, gradually increasing the number of screens and amount of advertising devoted to a promising film over several weeks (as opposed to a traditional pre-release advertising blitz). Some sleeper hits fail completely at the box office but succeed later on television and video as cult films (such as The Shawshank Redemption and The Big Lebowski) through positive word-of-mouth reviews communicated between fans in particular social networks or demographics.

A sleeper hit does not necessarily have to create a lot of revenue; it just needs to achieve a high degree of success relative to expectations. The Dreamworks film Shark Tale was panned by critics but was a box-office success with fans garnering $367,275,019, nearly five times its budget. However, the term is generally not used to refer to large-budget films—even those that defy their expectations, such as 1997's Titanic, which had been expected to lose money. The term is fairly subjective, so many films are informally referred to as sleepers. Sometimes unreleased films are advertised as sleepers.

Music

An example is the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, which became a hit in 1991 when alternative rock was not yet mainstream and hair metal and other 1980s styles were at the end of their heyday.

In 2008, Raphael Saadiq released his classic soul-inspired album The Way I See It, which became a sleeper hit. Overlooked upon its release, it ended up charting for 41 weeks on the Billboard 200.

The 2011 pop hit "Pumped Up Kicks" by indie rock band Foster the People has also been described as a sleeper hit as it was originally a modern rock radio hit in late 2010, and slowly crossed over to contemporary hit radio by August 2011. The song's sleeper success was considered surprising by some media outlets, as rock music—and especially indie rock music—rarely crossed over to the CHR format throughout the 2000s and early 2010s.

A further example of a sleeper hit is the song "Lights" by British musician Ellie Goulding, which unexpectedly climbed to number two in the US charts over a year after it was released. The song failed to reach the top 40 in Goulding's native Great Britain, making it even more surprising as a hit in America.

The biggest examples of sleeper hits is probably the "indie pop" band fun.'s "We Are Young" and "Some Nights".. We Are Young initally achived minor success, but following the 2012 Super Bowl, where it was heard on a commercial, it slowly climbed to No.1 on the billboard hot 100 where it stayed there for six weeks and went five times platinum. Some Nights also achived success as it spents more than 4 months on the Hot 100 before hitting the top 40 and peaking at no 3 after 3 more months.

Books

In publishing, success is usually measured by reaching the bestseller lists. Sleeper books are usually released by an unknown (often first-time) author, are not widely publicized on release, and may not sell well at first. However, sleeper books gain recognition by word of mouth and this leads to sales increases. They can be promoted by independent booksellers, book clubs, or literary awards.

For example, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (a first-time novelist), was released with a modest print run of 25,000. It received good reviews and was initially promoted by small booksellers and word-of-mouth. The book won the 1997 National Book Award, spent 45 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, sold over a million copies in hardback alone, and was adapted for film in 2003.

Video Games

Unexpectedly successful video games such as Riviera: The Promised Land for the Game Boy Advance, the PC game Roller Coaster Tycoon, the multi-platform game Angry Birds and Batman: Arkham Asylum, the DS game Scribblenauts, the PS2 game Katamari Damacy. the PS3 games Valkyria Chronicles and Demon's Souls, the PC game Minecraft, the Wii game No More Heroes, or Dreamcast's Skies of Arcadia can also be described as sleeper hits. Also included are games such as Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night which saw only limited success on initial release but were critically praised, developed a strong fan community, and later saw several re-releases inspired by strong fan support.

TV shows

Sleeper hits are rare in television, as the massive competition for time slots and high costs of production mean that most series that do not premiere to strong ratings are quickly cancelled. Nevertheless, several important franchises fall into this category - Star Trek, for instance, was nearly cancelled early on but saved by a barrage of letters from its loyal fan community, and has since gone on to become a multibillion-dollar empire spanning several series and almost a dozen films. Joss Whedon's Firefly series was a critically beloved but sparsely watched sci-fi franchise that later inspired the movie Serenity and eventually gave Whedon a significant reputation in film. The most recent reboot to the My Little Pony series, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, has become a unexpectedly large hit among a subset of millenial generation males due to viral Internet memes, despite being a property designed very specifically to appeal to young girls in its original form in the 1980s, and not targeted at a male audience in the reboot nor expected to reach a male audience. Another big example is the nickelodeon television show Invader Zim.

External links

• Movies that took the longest time to reach #1 at the weekend box office
• The Science of the Sleeper