30 years ago, the biggest sci-fi blockbuster of the ’90s quietly changed Hollywood forever

There was a time when the biggest name on a movie poster wasn’t the title. It was the actor — names like Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, and Bruce Willis. Audiences weren’t just buying tickets to a story, they were buying tickets to spend two hours with performers they already loved. Today, blockbuster marketing usually works the other way around. The franchise comes first. The actors are often secondary.