The Blockbuster
The word was originally the name of a bomb. It referred to a 4,000-pound bomb used in the Second World War — 'blockbuster,' because it had the power to level a city block. The earliest confirmed use is a wire-service article from July 1942. The word moved into film in 1956, applied to large productions like War and Peace and The Ten Commandments. This map has several names that came from somewhere else. This time, the word came from war.
On June 20, 1975, Jaws opened simultaneously in 409 theaters across the US (464 including Canada). In the three days before release, more than twenty 30-second TV ads ran every night in the best evening slots, costing $700,000 on their own. Total marketing spend was $1.8 million — the most Universal had ever spent.
But the common claim that Jaws invented the wide simultaneous release isn't accurate. A month earlier, on May 21, Columbia's Breakout had already opened across roughly 1,300 theaters with 17,000 radio spots. Universal's executives were impressed and brought the same approach to Jaws. Narrowing an initial plan of 900 theaters down to 464 was their own decision. Jaws wasn't the inventor — it was the film that proved the pattern and made it stick. There's a matching story at the opposite end of this map: The Great Train Robbery wasn't the first western either. It was the film that established the pattern.
Before this, summer was the season studios threw films away in. Prestige pictures came out at year's end; anything unlikely to succeed got dumped in summer to be forgotten quickly. As of 1975, summer accounted for only about 30% of the year's box office. Jaws stayed at number one for fourteen straight weeks and became the first film to pass $100 million in theatrical rentals. From then on, summer became the main battleground.
But that isn't the part of this thread I most want to tell. The mechanical shark was built for fresh water and kept breaking down in the ocean. Radio calls came in saying the shark wasn't working, and a shoot planned for 55 days stretched to 159. The result was the way the film was made — you barely see the shark. Spielberg himself later said that if he'd made it in 2005, with digital tools available, he would have shown the shark more, and ruined the film more. He called the breakdowns 'a gift from the heavens,' and said they let him work the way Hitchcock did.
This map has told the story of constraint producing invention before — Neorealism, forced onto the streets when studios weren't available; Dogme 95, which imposed its own rules on itself. The same line, it turns out, runs through the most commercially successful film here too.
Star Wars, in 1977, opened in only about 30 theaters (sources vary between 32 and 43). The story that Lucas gave up his director's fee in exchange for merchandising and sequel rights is well known, but it doesn't seem to be the simple case of 'Fox not knowing what it was giving away.' Two Fox executives from the time disagree on who actually approved the deal, and there's evidence the studio set specific terms — 60% of the revenue and a 20% annual increase. Legends, it seems, lose their rough edges as they travel.
Where Jaws made a sequel because it succeeded, Star Wars was built from the start around sequels and merchandise. The effect showed up in unexpected places — the next Bond film changed its plans and went to space (Moonraker, 1979).
I can't write the present chapter yet. Release patterns are still shifting between theaters and streaming. People say there are too many franchise films, and then theaters pull audiences back again. This map leaves what isn't settled unsettled.