'Jaws' took a big bite out of the box office and changed Hollywood

Indianapolis Star

5 hours ago

After "Jaws" hit the big screen 50 years ago – and smashed the then-current box office record – moviemakers and studios knew from then on they were going to need bigger budgets.
The Steven Spielberg-directed film cost $12 million to make, more than three times its original budget and about four times the cost of an average film at the time. Of course, much of that involved the building of three mechanical great white sharks.
"Jaws" opened June 20, 1975, on 400-plus screens across the U.S. and Universal spent $700,000 on an unprecedented TV advertising campaign, according to the 2010 book "George Lucas' Blockbusting," to drive movie lovers to theaters and create lines as a show of bloodthirsty demand.
Overall, Universal spent "a whopping $1.8 million on promo," notes Empire magazine, which in its special June issue deemed the movie "unequivocally the most influential, important and game-changing summer blockbuster … ushering in new levels of pre-release publicity."
Hollywood was never the same after "Jaws" and its effects "are still resonating today," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore.
"The sensation 'Jaws' created made the movie theater experience the epicenter of culture and spawned what would become known as the summer popcorn movie blockbuster," Dergarabedian told USA TODAY.
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The Guinness Book of World Records agrees. "Not only did people queue up around the block to see the movie, during its run in theatres it became the first film to reach more than $100 million in U.S. box office receipts," according to the Guinness description of its first summer blockbuster film award.
In just over two months, "Jaws" surpassed previous box office leaders "The Godfather" and "The Exorcist."
Despite being blockbusters in their own way, "those obviously were not aimed at younger moviegoers and not released in the summer," Dergarabedian said.
While "Jaws" is a movie classic, Spielberg recently said he deemed "The Godfather," the film "Jaws" overtook as the box office godfather at the time, stands as the "greatest American film ever made."
By the time "Jaws" finished its domestic run in theaters it had made more than a quarter of a billion dollars ($260 million), which is over a billion dollars today," said Ross Williams, founder and editor of The Daily Jaws website in a new documentary "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story." The documentary premieres July 10 on National Geographic and streams the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
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Also in the "Jaws @ 50" documentary, filmmaker George Lucas recalled how Spielberg invited him and some others to see the in-development shark. 'He (Steven) wanted to show us the construction of the shark, which was impressive. So I thought, 'Great this is going to be a good movie.' It was obvious it was going to be a big hit.'
Spielberg, who discusses the struggles making the film in the documentary, was skeptical. "George looked at the shark and said, 'Wow this is going to be the most successful movie ever made.' and I, of course, looked at George like, 'Well you know from your lips to you know' ... but I didn't believe that."
Lucas would go on to write and direct "Star Wars," which was released in May 1977 and would break the box office record set by "Jaws." Then, Spielberg would leapfrog him with "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" in 1982.
Before "Jaws," summer had been theatrical territory owned primarily by B movies and exploitation films such as 1974's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
After "Jaws," the major Hollywood studios, which had avoided summer, now identified it as the prime releasing season, and 'Jaws' inspired hundreds of summer thrillers and F/X pictures," wrote the late Roger Ebert in his book "The Great Movies II."
Spielberg himself would go on to spawn many more summer blockbusters including "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Jurassic Park," "A.I. Artificial Intelligence," "War of the Worlds" and "Minority Report" – all hitting theaters in the month of June. Two Indy adventures – "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" – released in May, the years 1989 and 2008, respectively, and "Saving Private Ryan" in July 1998.
Outliers: "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" landed in theaters in December 1977; other December releases were "The Color Purple" (1985) and "Schindler's List" (1993).
Spielberg had "hit after hit after hit for so long, and most of the time they were summer blockbusters," Shawn Robbins, founder and owner of Box Office Theory, told USA TODAY. His hit list included thrillers, fantasy and science fiction. "Genres, in a lot of ways, evolved because of what 'Jaws' did for summer blockbusters," he said.
"Jaws" also raised the stakes, by moving "the bar in terms of audiences and what kind of thrill they might get," said J.J. Abrams, in the "Jaws @ 50" documentary.
For instance, Lucas in "Star Wars," sought to match the thrill audiences got when Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) kills the shark in "Jaws," said Abrams. "When you think about it, it is a bit like the Death Star moment.'
Studios' desire to have a release crowned as a summer blockbuster continues today. This summer's success, so far, of "Lilo & Stitch" and "Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning" suggests the goal of a summer hit remains. "'Lilo & Stitch' has been a huge start to the summer season and one of Disney's most successful remakes that they've done," Robbins said.
The financial success of "Jaws" migrated beyond the movie theater. Spielberg, along with Lucas, transformed movies into intellectual properties, which could be parlayed into merchandise, theme parks, video games, books, and TV shows, Robbins said. "They became a significant part of the pop culture fabric."
''Jaws' was the perfect movie at the right time to become an absolute sensation and in turn changed the whole model on which Hollywood based its revenue generating capabilities," Dergarabedian said. "Nothing was ever the same after 'Jaws.'"
Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY's Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & [e-mail]