8 Small-Scale Movies That Blew Up Into Blockbuster Action Franchises

8. Indiana Jones

The unexpected transition between fun, small-scale storytelling and epic blockbuster franchise is often marked by the inclusion of the main character's name in the title. It happened with Rambo, and it also happened around the same time with Indiana Jones.

Although you could certainly argue that Raiders of the Last Ark was never meant to be a particularly "small" film, young upstart filmmakers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were given an extremely modest budget of $18 million to turn in one of the most inventive, exciting action-adventure movies in history.

And while Harrison Ford imbibed the character of Dr. Jones with his trademark sassy wit and cocksure charm we were used to seeing in his portrayal of Han Solo, it was fair to question whether they could be a whole franchise around this guy.

It honestly seemed like this could have been a one-and-done situation. Luckily, that wasn't the case.

Part of what makes this series so interesting is that, unlike other franchises, the motto for its sequels didn't seem to be "give us something bigger" but instead, "give us something different." They didn't really try to jam more action into the movies, they just focused on trying to utilize more creative action.

Spielberg didn't necessarily court blockbuster status, so much as fall into it time and time again.