10 Most Important And Influential Summer Blockbusters Of All-Time
8. X-Men
Blade may have offered the genre a lifeline in 1998 after Batman & Robin had almost killed it completely the previous year, but it wasn't until Bryan Singer's X-Men arrived in 2000 that the superhero movie came roaring back to the forefront of the public consciousness, and even after two decades the bubble still shows no signs of bursting.
The first installment in Fox's mutant franchise is by no means the greatest comic book movie ever made, but few have had such a lasting impact. Not only did it spawn a further eleven entries, but it showed that superheroes were big business once again and having picked up the ball, Hollywood still hasn't let it go.
X-Men's influence is undeniable, and just four years after it was released we'd already seen Spider-Man, Daredevil, the Hulk, Hellboy, the Punisher and countless others get the big screen treatment, as the genre cemented itself as the most popular and bankable in the business, and things haven't changed 20 years later.