10 Oddly Specific Genres That Were Briefly Hugely Popular
5. A-List Movie Stars Trapped In Space
Sci-fi has always been one of the most popular genres in all of cinema, and is capable of both allowing filmmakers to tell familiar stories in a faraway location or create something entirely new. However, following the huge success of Alfonso Cuaron's critical and commercial hit Gravity, it appeared as though we were suddenly bombarded with big-budget stories that featured A-list movie stars trapped helplessly beyond the stars.
Following the precedent set by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in Gravity, Tom Cruise thought he was the last man on Earth in Oblivion, Matt Damon scienced the sh*t out of the titular planet in The Martian, Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway went existential in Interstellar, Jennifer Lawrence was rudely woken up by Chris Pratt in Passengers, while Brad Pitt was forced on a journey of self-discovery in Ad Astra.
Not all of them turned out to be quite as successful despite having a famous face front and center in both the marketing and the narrative, but for a while the movie industry seemed determined to make a real go of having the sci-fi genre become the exclusive property of the biggest stars in the business.