10 Oddly Specific Genres That Were Briefly Hugely Popular

10. Action Movies Where Everyone Wears Leather

Blade, The Matrix and Bryan Singer's X-Men have a lot to answer for here. When those three very different but still hugely influential blockbusters arrived at the turn of the millennium, it was suddenly decided that virtually every action movie to come out of Hollywood over the next several years was obligated to include at least one character that was clad head-to-toe in leather.

The movie business has a habit of jumping on whatever ended up working for one of their competitors, and before we knew it everyone was throwing fists and jumping through the air in slow motion in a material that has never been particularly well-regarded for practicality.

A lot of these movies turned out to be as uncomfortable to watch as they no doubt were to shoot, with the cowhide-clad action genre spawning movies like Ben Affleck's Daredevil, McG's Charlie's Angels franchise, Underworld, Equilibrium, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Uma Thurman in The Avengers and the risible Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Give us John McClane's tattered white vest any day of the week, thank you very much.