10 Iconic Movies That Spawned A Thousand Imitators

10. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring

Following a string of well-publicized failures in the preceding decades, big-budget fantasy epics were viewed as box office poison in Hollywood for a very long time, until Peter Jackson and The Lord of the Rings came along and shattered those preconceptions.

As well as launching what would go on to become regarded as one of the greatest trilogies ever committed to film, The Fellowship of the Ring earned $887m at the box office and received universal critical acclaim, notching up thirteen Academy Award nominations in the process.

This almost instantly saw a collective lightbulb go off in the heads of studio executives throughout the industry, and before you knew it a slew of literary adaptations were given the green-light, with the blockbuster fantasy genre suddenly flavor of the month.

In virtually no time at all theaters were bombarded with movies like The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Golden Compass, Eragon, Percy Jackson & the Olympians, while short-lived TV shows like Legend of the Seeker and Earthsea also looked to cash in to no avail.

Very few of these projects came anywhere close to replicating the success of The Lord of the Rings, and Peter Jackson's work will no doubt remain the benchmark in the genre for a long time yet.