For example, many films are received well by critics but end up losing money and are therefore termed box office bombs.

This is not necessarily an accurate assessment of a film’s quality. In the most simple terms, a film is classed as a box office hit if it makes substantially more money than its original budget. The Marvel franchise is perhaps the most successful example of this.

A modern-day development of this is the movie franchise where multiple films set in a single universe are made and linked together. The original Star Wars trilogy built on this success and cemented the idea of blockbusting movies. 'Jaws' was the first film to earn $100 million at the box office and set the precedent for movies released by big corporations. Examples include James Cameron’s 'Avatar' and the first film to be considered a blockbuster: 'Jaws'. The term originates from the 1920s when advertisers would describe films as being as impactful as a type of bomb a blockbuster. Blockbuster MoviesĪ 'blockbuster' movie describes any film made by a large film studio with a big budget that achieves commercial and popular success. Safe to say, it was a huge success and is the predecessor to box office giants such as 'Avatar', 'Titanic', and the 'Avengers' series. Silent films dominated and became hugely popular, until 1927 when 'The Jazz Singer' became the first film to feature synchronized audible dialogue. In 1906, the first ever feature film, 'The Story of the Kelly Gang', was released and it demonstrated the commercial viability of showing long-form movies to the public. But films such as this were revolutionary and paved the way for the incredible, high-grossing spectacles we know today.

Back then, his two-second long film, which featured consecutive shots sewn together to show moving action, was little more than an experiment to prove a concept. Movies have come a long way since they were first invented in 1878 by Eadward Muybridge.

Hit film