10 Great Movies That Inadvertently Ruined Cinema

9. Jaws Became The First Blockbuster & Gave Rise To Countless Generic, Lowest Common Denominator Movies

Everybody knows that Jaws was the first big "blockbuster," but lots of people probably aren't exactly aware of what that means - or why it's often referred to as such. Before Jaws, then, it's important to realise that movies weren't distributed all over the country at once. They'd play in select cities around the US, and if these screenings were successful, the movie studio would slowly roll out the films to more territories as they saw fit.

With Jaws, however, they released the movie everywhere in one massive go and marketed the hell out of it - Jaws became an "event." The fact that everyone could see Jaws - and had been told to by the posters and TV advertisements - simply meant that everyone did exactly that. Who would want to be the only person to not have seen the movie, given the hype?

It's no wonder then, that - as a result of its relentless marketing campaign and wide distribution - that Jaws became the then highest-grossing film of all-time. But it also paved the way for thousands and thousands of terrible, lowest common denominator flicks aimed at "everyone." Its influence still stretches out today into multiplexes.