It is October, summer is quickly fading here in Indiana. The Canadian geese are getting restless, dew is getting denser, the trees are becoming dabbled with color. As the sleep of winter descends on us my mind looks back on the season of summer and the soft nights spent watching a drive-in screen. I reflect on the summer of 1975 when the world of movies was sent down a path that at the same time was exhilarating and put the business on the path of where it finds itself today.
For the movie business, to quote Dickens “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”
Jaws was never supposed to be a hit. The film was scheduled for 55 days of production on Martha’s Vineyard, but it took over 160 days to make. Its $4 million budget more than doubled . The director was a filmmaker who, while having made SUGARLAND EXPRESS was really a television director. And top it all off the mechanical shark made for the film never really worked.
If Jaws had been made today, the internet would be ablaze and millions of trolls would take joy in claiming that it was their angry manifestations that sunk the picture. But the internet did not exist 41 summers ago, so on June 20, 1975, Steven Spielberg’s water soaked tale of suspense was sent into the world by the Mandarins of Universal Pictures became the biggest box office hit in film history . In the process, it helped to gave birth to the phrase “blockbuster” and made the summer the most lucrative movie going time of the year..
Ignoring the swollen budget and the troublesome mechanical shark, there were many early indications that JAWS might be a hit. Audience reactions in previews were amazing, they were enthralled by this picture. During such a preview and in response to the audiences rapture, Universal heads Lew Wasserman and Sid Sheinberg held an emergency meeting in the theatre bathroom to layout a new plan of attack distributing the movies, it is this bathroom summit that laid the groundwork for the engorged release patterns we see today. It was leaked to the press that during the scene where the shark eats young Alex Kintner, a man erupted from his seat in a Dallas preview and vomited in the lobby of the theatre. Even after being ill be insisted that he go back to his seat. Supposedly the iconic line,”You’re going to need a bigger boat,” had to have its volumes raised because the audience was all in a fluster of seeing the mechanical shark and drowned out this now famous line.
When JAWS was released, the distribution team at Universal wanted to give the film a 900 screen (minuscule by our standards). The always cagey Lew Wasserman , head of Universal told them to cut that number in half, so that there would be lines around the block and that the world would be gripped by the excitement generated by this movie. This of course gave rise to the term blockbuster.
During the first three days of release Jaws grossed $7.1 million in 409 theaters. Now by today’s standards this is small potatoes. You have to consider though that movie tickets in 1975 were, on average, just over $2 . Last year, the average ticket price was $8.50. Given that today major titles are release to ten times as many theatres, this is a huge number and more than respectable. From it’s opening weekend, the numbers remained strong in fact grew, as the word-of-mouth spread.
The film was successful and was allowed to grow organically, a discipline and strategy the distributors of today would be well advised to adapt to. What took hold in those theatres in the summer of 1975 was a collective viewing experience, a cathartic release for a nation healing after Vietnam. Audiences took hold of the film and together they shared the fear of dipping your toe in the water and not knowing if it will come out intact.
Jaws looked very different from the summer blockbusters of today. Today’s blockbuster focus on the superhero, a character totally detached from the realities of everyday life. Jaws, from the beginning was an exercise the heroism of the common man , men engaged in a pitched and fevered battle with just a one great white shark, which as opposed to today’s bloodbaths saw only 4 people meet their demise.
Jaws’ mechanical shark stands opposed to the packaged and contrived state of blockbusters today. A movie about great white aimed at a June audience today would likely be lousy with computer-generated effects. Now today films are released to generate profit but little of meaning. However, Spielberg’s film barely resembles the movies of today. Jaws is character-driven, only features a couple of special effects and relies on suspense rather than pyrotechnics.
The summer movie season have changed since 1975. Now a movie can be a huge box office hit but only stay near the top of the box office for a couple of weeks. The summer schedule is so cluttered with films that it is rare to have a film break out and remain in cinemas for longer than a month. It is all about a film’s performance on its opening weekend. Movies are not allowed to grow and secure an audience. This has been a death knell for independent pictures.
Wasserman let Jaws Jaws keep building an audience through the summer season and only reached the $100 million mark after 11 weeks after opening day. The film finished the summer with a more than respectable $130 million. Adjusted for inflation, the Jaws is the seventh biggest film in North American movie going history.
Jaws was a pop culture phenomenon of a size and stature that few films this century have had or will likely attain. Even though it changed Hollywood, for better and for worse, it is a film drastically unlike the big-budget releases that strain to hit blockbuster status today.
The release patterns of today is not working, it is feeding a culture of rapidity which is fueling the ill thought out day and date argument by the studios. Like many things in this country it’s time that we look to going smaller. I suspect that JAWS gave rise to the releasing of a film to 4000 theatres, a habit which in the long term has proven a disaster for the business. I think though if distributors were revisit the history of the business behind JAWS find pearls of logic which might be inspiration for a rejuvenated decentralized business.
I will say it once and I will say it many times…..in the movie business…it’s time to go smaller.
