To day the history of movies resulting into today’s blockbusters spans over a century, from the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Movies or motion pictures developed started as a novelty on local shows and markets and slowly developed into a mainstream movie theatre environment to one of the most important tools of communication and entertainment of the 20th century. Blockbuster movies today have a big impact on culture and society with new movies becoming available almost on a daily basis.

During 1878 the first movie was filmed. Far from today’s hollywood blockbusters the first movie ever was of a horse being recorded with 24 cameras to produce the moving picture effect. The cameras were staged along a horse track and each “movie” picture was shot as the cameras were triggered by the passing horse.

Only 20 years later the movie audiences and movie fans had grown such that the first projectors were invented to show basic films. The Edison company was at the fore front of building the first movie projectors.

The first movie stars – in short film movies

In 1926, the Hollywood studio Warner Bros. introduced the "Vitaphone" technique, showing short movies of entertainment and information about public figures. From the beginning movies created stars and turned public figures into movie celebrities.

The first movies with violence and sexual content

During the 1950s Hollywood productions took a dive with a lot of important movie productions being completed overseas, mostly in Europe. Only in the 70s, the so-called new Hollywood era started with the introduction of sexual content and violence to the movie industry on a large scale.

Movies – on video VCR

In the 1980s, movie audiences began watching blockbuster movies on their home VCRs. At first the movie studios tried legal action to ban home owned VCRs as a violation of copyright, but eventually the potential business in movies sold on VCR was recognised and the movie industry boomed.

The first fully digital movie

In 1995 the first movie length fully digital production, Toy Story, was successfully released into the movie community. Computer animated movies have since grown dramatically and changed the market for the traditional blockbuster producers. New companies entered the market and it became more affordable to produce blockbuster movies rivalling the traditional Hollywood blockbusters.

Movies on DVD

DVDs became the new standard for consumer video, pretty much replacing VHS based movies in the home environment.

Movies online - movies on the internet

Once again the movie industry opposes the new form of distribution of movies – the movie available online. Like in the early eighties with VHS tapes, movies on the internet are both the enemy and the only future. The sooner the movie industry catches on, the better for our future blockbuster experience.

Another development of the early 21st century are systems which make it much possible for anyone to shoot, change and instantly distribute their own movies without even involving the traditional blockbuster movie industry.