How did Jaws help create the summer blockbuster?

Jaws, released on June 20, 1975, combined a summer opening, a broad national release, heavy television advertising and a novel that readers already knew. It became the prototype for a high-budget picture designed to appeal across age groups and play on thousands of screens. Variety's 2015 retrospective calls the claim that it invented the summer blockbuster only partly true, because Star Wars two years later was needed to establish the template. [1] [2]

Before Jaws, studios had not yet focused on summer. Big films such as The Godfather, Love Story and The Exorcist opened in spring or winter, and they were aimed at adults. Variety's 50th anniversary piece says Jaws wanted teenagers as well as their parents, so a release while school was out made sense. Its huge gross showed the commercial power of that younger audience. Producer David Brown said the release was deliberately delayed until people were in the water at summer beach resorts. [3] [4]

Universal had treated the film as a routine B movie at first. After previews drew intense reactions, it backed the picture with a $1.8 million promotional push, according to Variety. The studio bought dozens of 30-second spots on primetime network shows, and the Hollywood Reporter says it tried to buy spots on every primetime show in the three days before release. The film and Peter Benchley's 1974 novel shared one shark-and-swimmer logo, and copies of the book were mailed to influential people. Cast and creators toured 11 cities, and Time ran a cover story the week before release. Brown described this as building pre-awareness, so audiences arrived already primed. [3] [5]

Variety's 2015 article says that crediting Jaws with inventing the wide release is not true. The 2025 Variety piece describes the release in more than 400 theaters as a way to make the film an event in every market at once, in contrast with slower road-show rollouts. The Hollywood Reporter says Universal cut its planned bookings to 409 theaters after executives saw the film, down from an initial proposal of about 1,000. So the release was broad for its time but also more controlled than first planned. [2] [3] [5]

Spielberg had the novel streamlined, dropping subplots to focus on three men against the sea, and he made the shark larger than the book's version. The Financial Times argues that the film gave him a template of a colossal villain and a beleaguered crew of heroes. Some people thought Jaws was a fluke, since it was a seaside story based on a popular beach read. Star Wars, which opened in late May 1977, broke its box office record and showed the model could be repeated, and it confirmed television's role in marketing. [3] [4] [2] [1]