The Evolution of Hollywood Disaster Movies

Forces of nature, asteroids and aliens, welcome to watchmojo.com. And today, we’ll be
taking a look at the evolution of the disaster film genre.

Disaster stories are as old as the Bible. And many have been produced since early
cinema. But in the 1970’s, the genre evolved. Disaster films became a box office craze
carried by extraordinary budgets, special effects, and the involvement of Hollywood’s
biggest talent. During the 70’s, disaster movies shifted from a focus on smaller scale
individual catastrophes like 1972’s “The Poseidon Adventure” and 1974’s “The
Towering Inferno”. The notion of an entire city experiencing disaster materialized in the
1974 film “Earthquake” which starred Charlton Heston. Its overwhelming success
guaranteed that audiences would be hammered for the following decade with countless
disaster films of all varieties from several competing studios.

Hollywood oversaturated the genre until box office bombs such as 1978’s “The Swarm”
featuring Michael Caine became the norm. As public interest faded, studios became
convinced that the real disasters were the financial bombs being financed. After a long
break from the genre, the 90’s saw disaster movies reemerged. This time, due to the
arrival of computer-generated graphics, which largely replaced practical effects.

1996’s “Independence Day” shook audiences with its unparalleled onscreen effects and
mayhem. The film illustrated a possible alien extermination of mankind and thrilled
audiences with Will Smith’s cool onscreen presence and one-liners. This triumph in the
box office jump started an all new studio race to produce the greatest onscreen disaster.
The following summers were filled with double dozes of similar disasters by competing
studios. In 1997, 20th Century Fox released “Volcano”, while Universal Pictures fought
back with “Dante’s Peak” as they each suck to capitalize on the public’s rekindled love of
large scale special effects driven disasters. The following summer, audiences were again
given two slices of the same pie when “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact” arrived on the
silver screen. Both films both had star-studded cast and budgets bigger than the asteroids
shown on screen.

In 2003, audiences got to see a group of scientists attempt to save earth while tremors
shook the globe in the core. While 2004’s “The Day after Tomorrow” capitalized on our
fears of Global Warming. In 2009, audiences were presented with the film “Knowing”
which exploited the idea that disasters have been predicted and maybe avoided. This
notion appeared again in the Roland Emmerich film “2012”. The film illustrates the end
of the world according to the ancient Mayan calendar. With several extreme disasters
working simultaneously to end the world, the film was labeled, the ultimate disaster
movie.