20 Most Important Blockbusters That Changed Cinema Forever

11. Waterworld

Waterworld is known for two things; having a fun theme park attraction and for being one of the most high profile box office bombs in cinema history. High profile it may be, but it certainly wasn't the biggest; it doesn't even feature on the list of the fifty biggest money wasters of all time. The film's budget was ginormous (adjusted for inflation it was just shy of $300 million) and the resulting product initially lost Universal a lot of cash, but with video sales and the licensing from the previously mentioned theme park the film did scrappily get its money back. It just took a little more time.

That a safe bet (because a mutated Kevin Costner on an endless sea is a sure thing) could fail so spectacularly to connect, however, shook the studios and had everyone a little warier. They didn't want to see this happen again.

Watching the film it feels like a relic of an older time, with expansively intricate sets and nary a computer effect in sight. And although CGI had already begun its rise earlier in the decade, Waterworld really helped its rise to total dominance; the budget had risen so high precisely because of the water-based sets, something computers could have replaced. Although we'd see other giant sets in the future (for Titanic James Cameron essentially rebuilt the ship), it was certainly less frequent when the financial dangers of them became clear.