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THIS ISSUE Inside
Tim Kelly’s Journey Into Personal Injury Law Page 1
This Month in History After the Accident Page 2
The Best Motorcycle Rallies This Season Honey-Garlic Glazed Chicken Thighs Page 3 We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Theater Page 4
Advertising Material
Jaws and the Rise of the Summer Blockbuster We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Theater
For many, summer is a great time to get outside and bask in the sunshine. For thousands of others, it signals a season littered with bone-rattling explosions, labyrinthine superhero crossovers, and catchphrase-spouting animated characters. All this is just to say that summer blockbusters are a big deal, raking in billions of dollars each year. According to Investopedia,“Ticket sales for May, June, and July accounted for 39 percent”of the 2008’s total sales. That may not sound like a whole lot, until you consider that“more than one-third of annual sales occur during a single quarter of the year.” It wasn’t always this way. Back in the early ’70s, ticket sales consistently flagged during the summer months. That is, until Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws“ hit the screen on June 20, 1975, and sent every beach bum on the coast scrambling out of the water and scurrying into theaters. You can try to pin the movie’s enormous success —grossing $470 million worldwide —on its thrilling story, and certainly, that was part of it. As the Financial Times writer Nigel Andrews puts it,“Jaws”gave Spielberg“the template for the perfect blockbuster. Create a colossal baddie … and a colossal hero… [and] follow by natural law.”
In fact,“Jaws” is as indebted to timing and marketing as to the titular prehistoric fish.
Before its release, Universal already smelled the blood in the water, giving three times the usual number of interviews during its shooting. They went on to give a preview at Long Beach, with executives Lew Wasserman and Sidney Sheinberg tape-recording the audience’s reaction. These tapes then went into“an unprecedented $700,000 dollars’worth of TV advertising,”according to Andrews. After all that, it’s no surprise that“Jaws”ended up the highest-grossing film in history — that is, until“Star Wars”followed suit with a summer opening and smashed its record, building a bandwagon for every studio to jump on and establishing a genuine American tradition. Nowadays, you can’t throw a beach ball in June without hitting some spandex-clad superhuman. But, even as the trailer for“Transformers 15”comes on, we’re not complaining. We’re too enthralled by what’s happening on screen.
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