10 Iconic Movies That Spawned A Thousand Imitators
Groundbreaking movies that caused everybody else to jump on the bandwagon.
The movie business has always sought to capitalize on whatever the current trends are, which is hardly surprising for an industry that lives and breathes to convince audiences to open their wallets and shell out for their latest offering.
Hollywood tends to move in cycles and follow whatever the current hottest genre is, with the executives in studio boardrooms acting like sharks when there's blood in the water as they aim to jump onto whatever the latest bandwagon is, and more often than not end they up running it into the ground in the process.
The thought process seems to be 'if it worked for them, it'll work for us', which is a pretty narrow-minded view to have, but it has nonetheless been proven to yield results. If somebody comes up with a great idea or a unique and interesting concept, which then turns out to be a huge success at the box office, you can bet your house on a wave of similarly-themed movies making their way to the big screen in the immediate future.
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.