10 Reasons The Early 90s Were Better Than The Early 2010s
3. Blockbusters Were Made For Adults
Before multiplexes became off limits to anyone out of their early 20s, the most expensive movies weren’t PG-rated comic book movies but R-rated comic book movies that weren’t afraid to get seriously violent and seriously sleazy. Imagine Marvel Studios blowing $400m on an Avengers movie where limbs are torn off, bodies are shredded and the women get naked a lot, and you’ve got a fair idea of where the world was at in 1990.
That was the year of Die Hard 2 and Total Recall, both of which cost a then unheard of $70 million dollars and featured the kind of violence that causes Republicans to foam at the mouth. They were based on books rather than comics, videogames or theme park rides, and their idea of ‘playing it safe’ was product placement for USA Today.
A year later, the R-rated Terminator 2: Judgement Day became the first movie to cost more than $100 million. This is the Arnold Schwarzenegger that people will remember, not the 67-year-old going through the motions in Terminator 5.