Everybody loves an awesome action movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat with mind boggling special effects and outrageous explosions, but sadly not all action packed movies raked in the big bucks when they were released. This paper is going to go through the years and classify the best action movies as being instant hits or disappointing financial failures.
Between 1980-1989 you had two very good movies released, Bloodsport and The Legend Of Drunken Master. Bloodsport starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and it was his first lead role. The movie was an instant hit after being released in theaters, which was a huge surprise because the movie had an extremely limited budget. Jean-Claude became an overnight superstar and went on to make many more great movies like Hard Target and Sudden Death.
The Legend Of Drunken Master is a terrific action movie, but it does not have such a happy success story. The movie stars Jackie Chan and it was originally released in the East. The movie displays some of Jackie Chan's awesome abilities that haven't even been shown in his U.S. movies. The movie was popular, but it did not make as much money as was expected. However, only recently Jackie Chan decided to have the movie dubbed and remastered so that it could be released in the U.S.A. on DVD. The movie made more money here than it did in China when it was originally released.
Between 1990-1999 two of the greatest movies of all time were created, The Matrix and Army Of Darkness. Army of Darkness was released in 1992 and it was a bit ahead of its time. Universal Studios even considered removing it from theaters at the time. Bruce Campbell had the lead role and he was a virtually unknown actor having only done two prior movies. It wasn't until years later that people began to accept this movie as a type of cult classic. The movie has had multiple DVD releases and has been recognized as an action/comedy/sci-fi/horror classic.