As a child of the 1990s, my main memories of going to the cinema are of seeing Tommy Lee Jones save the world in Volcano, Pierce Brosnan save the world in Dante’s Peak, Helen Hunt save the world in Twister, Bruce Willis save the world in Armageddon… Essentially a lot of stars were saving the world from natural (or perhaps not so natural if you ask a scientist) disasters.
Source: The Genre Cycle: Commercial cinema fads and how they arise