Al-Amn Magazine

most star-studded releases. This phenomenon also shifted the seasonal logic of Hollywood studios, which back then typically saved the biggest releases for the year-end holiday season. Soon they realized there was tremendous money to be made in summer. In his book Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer, critic Tom Shone points out that, in 1975, summer moviegoing accounted for only 32 percent of annual business. By 1996—a year defined by summer megahits like Independence Day and Mission: Impossible—that percentage had nearly doubled. Launching the merch juggernaut The practice of large-scale hawking of movie merchandise can also be traced back to Jaws. As Shone observes in Blockbuster, the early merchandising of “Jawsmania” was a grassroots phenomenon, “driven not by the studio but by private profiteers, pirates or just entrepreneurs with a single goofy idea.” Universal did sell Jaws T-shirts and towels, but the more creative ideas emerged independently of the studio and exploited an untapped fan enthusiasm: a Georgia fisherman selling shark jawbones, for instance, or an ice cream stand with Jaws-inspired flavors like “finilla” instead of vanilla.  By the time George Lucas made Star Wars, he saw the potential and shrewdly agreed to waive a $500,000 fee from Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation in exchange for retaining the merchandising and sequel rights. The deal paid off enormously: Star Wars-themed merchandise earned $20 billion over the next 35 years as the toys, action figures and Lego sets filled homes worldwide. Subsequent franchises, like Indiana Jones or Back to the Future, similarly spawned extensive merchandise and collectible lines. Upending the industry release logic Jaws also changed how movies are released, in a literal sense. The film opened in more than 400 theaters, making it an unusually wide release at the time— though not, contrary to popular belief, the first film with a so-called saturation release. In 1974, McBride notes, The Trial of Billy Jack opened in more than 1,000 theaters during its opening week, despite or perhaps because it was critically panned. “The attitude previously was, if you had a very wide opening, it meant it wasn’t a very good film and they were trying to get their money quickly before the word of mouth spread,” says McBride, author of Steven Spielberg: A Biography. “If you had a quality film, they would open it in a few theaters in major cities and then gradually expand it. They’d open films in New York and L.A. and Chicago and let the word get around.”  Jaws overhauled that mentality, revealing the logic of a massive first-week release accompanied by heavy national advertising (and, crucially, positive word of mouth). “A lot of people claim that Spielberg and Lucas ruined Hollywood, which I think is simplistic,” McBride says. “Because those films did cause the blockbuster phenomenon to become dominant.” In McBride’s view, what actually ruined Hollywood was the television advertising that accompanied these gargantuan releases. “When you have a 30-second spot to sell a film, it becomes very simplistic. And then they had to design films so they could be described in a 30-second spot.” Before becoming a classic, Jaws itself initially earned mixed reviews, with critics focusing praise on its strong characterizations and performances. And its soundtrack and suspenseful editing won awards. As it turns out, the filming of Jaws had traumatized Spielberg—the mechanical shark rarely worked, and the nightmarish production ran 100 days over schedule. But the director used those technical limitations to his advantage, rendering the shark a sensed but unseen menace with Hitchcockian flair. It felt, in his words, “almost like I’m directing the audience with an electric cattle prod,” and the approach worked. The film’s success anointed him a figurehead of the New Hollywood movement and a millionaire before age 30; its savvy direction blurred lines between lowbrow “creature feature” and psychological drama.  hollywoodreporter.com