THE FILMS: Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg), Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988, Robert Zemeckis), Spider-Man (2002, Sam Raimi)
THE CONNECTION: Films that were not only the biggest summer money-makers in the years they were released, but that also symbolize a shift in what audiences—and studios—wanted going forward.
THE THINKING: Before air-conditioners became commonplace, movie theaters were a favorite destination on sweltering summer days. On Memorial Day weekend in 1925 Paramount’s Rivoli Theatre in Times Square unveiled a new “refrigeration” system: the first commercial air-conditioning to be installed in a public building. Box office receipts were up $5,000 that week, and the air-conditioned movie house as we know it was born.
But in the 1950s, when home air-conditioning units became more affordable, fewer citizens needed movie theaters to cool off. Summer became a dead zone for Hollywood—releases had no expectations for success.
Then 1975 happened—and a little movie about a shark would change that expectation seemingly forever.
The success of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws—which was partly due to it being a great film and partly due to a nearly yearlong marketing campaign before its opening—showed studios that they could put more money into fewer films and make huge profits, as long as the films were sold properly to an audience. Thenceforth executives have learned to invest a lot in the summer blockbuster.
Jaws not only launched “the big summer film,” but it also created a space for its creator, Steven Spielberg, and his pal George Lucas, who would see Star Wars top the summer movie list in 1977. And aside from a couple of horror pictures (The Omen, in 1976, and The Amityville Horror, in 1979) and a 1950s-nostalgia musical (Grease, in 1978), these two directors ruled the season for years with huge successes, such as The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982). But as audience tastes veered toward the goofy comedies and mindless action movies that ultimately defined the 1980s, so did these blockbusters. The rest of the decade had hits like Ghostbusters (1984), Back to the Future (1985), Top Gun (1986), and Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), the first of many comic book–inspired summer moneymakers.
In 1988 the biggest film of the summer was Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, an innovative mash-up of live action and animation that started a Disney renaissance (and Rabbit was coproduced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment). The Lion King, with its $1,586,753 opening weekend gross in 1994, would be the company’s next summer win. Disney ruled the summer in the 2000s with a supremacy akin to that of Spielberg and Lucas, scoring the biggest seasonal (and often yearly) hits in 2001 (Shrek), 2003 (Finding Nemo), 2004, (Shrek 2), 2006 (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest), and 2010 (Toy Story 3).
Only a few summer movies could compete with Disney in the 2000s, and each showed us where the summer blockbuster was headed. Despite Batman‘s reign in 1989 and the success of its sequels (topping the list in 1992 and 1995), the true birth of the comic book age came in 2002 with the release of Spider-Man. Even though it was produced by Sony, Spider-Man was ultimately the first successful film to feature Marvel characters, and it obviously wouldn’t be the last. These properties would become some of the highest-grossing films of all time. But because they didn’t exclusively come out in summer, some animated films still dominated, not to mention the occasional DC Comics story or Star Wars prequel or rerelease.
It seems since Jaws, one genre or another has taken over the summer blockbuster for a while and then stepped aside. The only through line since 1975 has been technology. For the most part, from Star Wars forward, production advancements have been what moviegoers line up for. Filmmakers continuously find new ways to integrate computer-based art into their stories; whether that’s inserting a cartoon in a live scene, as in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, or creating an entire universe on a screen, as in The Avengers. And moviegoers have flocked to watch this unfold during their summer vacations mostly because of one mechanical shark and aggressive marketing.
Jaws, Steven Spielberg, 1975
You can’t talk about summer blockbusters without mentioning Jaws. It’s widely regarded as the first, and the provider of a new template. What separated it from summer releases that came before was its marketing campaign, which took a page from 1973’s The Exorcist—another highly profitable novel adaptation. Universal spent $1.8 million on a campaign of print and television ads for Jaws, including a record number of broadcast spots in the few days before its release; in 1975, it was virtually impossible not to know about this film. Add to that some very skillful filmmaking from Steven Spielberg and a very memorable score from John Williams and you have all the makings of a very successful film.
Based on an also highly marketed novel, by Peter Benchley, Jaws is the story of a big city cop who becomes sheriff (Roy Scheider) in a New England beach town, where summer dollars are vital to the economy. When shark attacks start a war between commerce and safety, the town must decide where to draw the line.
There is a lot of lore around the production of this film—most notably that the mechanical shark often malfunctioned and wasn’t featured as prominently as the director wanted. But many say it’s the shark’s absence that generates the most suspense and terror. So, a happy accident changed summer moviegoing forever.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,
Robert Zemeckis, 1988
In the past few decades at the summer box office, animation has reigned supreme. Even over the last 1o years, as comic book movies have become the rage, films like Finding Dory (2016) and The Incredibles 2 (2018) still won out in the summer, which owes a great debt to 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.
This film uses a technique called rotographing to add animated characters to live-action scenes, and in a far more seamless way than anything that came before it. The animation/human interactions are really fun to watch because of this and don’t jar you out of the story. As the title says, Roger Rabbit is framed. It’s for the murder of someone who might be his wife’s lover on the side. Hired to investigate, hard-nosed private eye Eddie Valiant discovers things aren’t as they seem and uncovers a plot that affects all the cartoons in their home of Toontown.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is technologically innovative, but it’s also a well-crafted script (think Chinatown with cartoons) that hearkens back to the noir films of the 1930s and 1940s, which makes it unique as a summer blockbuster.
Spider-Man, Sam Raimi, 2002
These days comic book movies dominate the box office all year long. Whether they’re from Marvel or the always-playing-catchup DC Comics, people just can’t stay away. And while we had things like Superman in the early 1980s and the very successful Batman franchise of the 1980s and 1990s, it was Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man that ushered in a new and lasting era of successful pictures based on comics. It was the first film in history to gross over $100 million in its opening weekend, something many attribute to a post-9/11 attitude of wanting something uplifting and bright. But it also showed two-dimensional characters brought to life in ways they never had been. Technology finally caught up to comic books. Spider-Man—a film that started development in the 1980s—was on the big screen at last in all its CGI glory, and Hollywood was changed forever.
You know the Spider-Man story: Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider and learns to master his new powers. There’s a girl and a villain, too. But the plot is secondary to the incredible visual effects and thrill-ride pace, something later comic book films adopted to great success. They’re not thinkers, but they sure are a lot of fun.
FURTHER READING:
- “Jaws: The Monster That Ate Hollywood” (PBS Frontline)
- “Why Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Was Revolutionary” (Flavorwire)
- “2002 Rewatch: How High Does Spider-Man Swing 20 Years and Two Reboots Later?” (Entertainment Weekly)
WHERE TO WATCH: