James Cameronhas done it again — 13 years after the release ofAvatar, and 26 sinceTitanicgave usLeonardo DiCapriotragically dying holding onto a wooden door,Avatar: The Way of Watercracked the top 5 highest grossing movies of all time. The sequel is third only to the firstAvatar, which came out in 2009, and 2019’sAvengers: Endgame. Cameron has proven himself to be a true blockbuster king, a title that once belonged to filmmakers such asSteven SpielbergandGeorge Lucas. But what does this title mean, blockbuster king? What even is a blockbuster? And when did we start calling high-grossing, crowd-pleasing pictures such asAvatarandAvengersblockbusters?
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For the modern cinema-goer, the term has become synonymous with big franchise films, and there is no doubt about its meaning: a blockbuster is a movie that has people queuing around the block to watch it, buying tickets in advance and camping in lines to ensure that they will be able to get a good seat. It’s a sight that is becoming rarer and rarer in our current age of streaming, but that still lives on in our imagination. However, pinpointing exactly when the first blockbuster movie came out can be a little tricky. Many claim that it was in 1975, when Spielberg released a killer shark in our collective consciousness withJaws. However, the actual history behind the blockbuster is a bit more complex than that…
The Term Blockbuster First Appeared in the 1940s
According to media studies professorCharles R. Acland, the term blockbuster originated in World War II. At the time, newspapers used it to refer to “the new, large, 4,000-pound bombs dropped by Allied forces on enemy cities.” Following the end of the war, the word became a descriptor for movies with “outsized production budgets, elaborate promotional campaigns, and significant box-office results.” Only one of these elements is necessary for a film to be considered a blockbuster, Acland claims, which is why we often hear about low-budget blockbusters and would-be blockbusters turned box-office bombs.
How ‘Jaws’ Became the So-Called First Blockbuster
But even with all this rich history behind the term, there are many who still claim that Spielberg’sJawswas the first film to bust the blocks around American movie theaters. This isn’t without reason. Released in the summer of 1975,Jawswas the first movie to gross over $235 million at the box-office. By the end of its original run, it had made $260 million in the US, and $470 million worldwide. The story of the small beach town terrorized by a bloodthirsty shark, also spent 14 consecutive weeks at No. 1.
Jawsalso made history due to its advertising strategy. At the time of the film’s original release, Universal hyped it up with 30-second spots on prime-time TV, to which the distributor devoted a huge chunk of its $2 million marketing budget. The campaign also featured talk show tours, marketing tie-ins, and numerous test screenings. Prospective viewers were encouraged to read the originalPeter Benchleynovel on whichCarl Gottliebbased the movie’s screenplay. This all-encompassing, million-dollar strategy is mimicked by distributors to this day. Spielberg’s first big hit also heralded the beginning of the era of the franchise through its multiple sequels, and cemented the months of summer as the perfect time for the release of big-budget movie spectaculars. Thus, while it isn’t exactly right to callJawsthefirstHollywood blockbuster, the film still has its place in the history of the “genre” as the firstsummerblockbuster.
Furthermore, back in the 1970s,Hollywood was facing one of its many crises, unprepared that it was to compete with television and to meet the expectations of the hordes of young viewers that were born 20 years prior, during the baby boom. As is usually the case whenever an industry goes through a crisis, this allowed for a lot of experimentation and eventually led to market consolidation. The ’70s were a time for directors inspired by the European auteurs, such asMartin ScorseseandFrancis Ford Coppola, to develop their style and create more highbrow American classics such asRaging BullandThe Godfather. However, they were also a time for studios looking for new ways to make money, which they found in big-budget blockbusters such asJawsand, of course,Star Wars. By the end of the decade, in the battle between auteurs and studio spectacles, it was clear who had won. ThoughThe Godfathereventually got a third sequel in 1990, it was big, flashy moneymakers, with a huge potential for toy lines, that became the new face of Hollywood. In that sense,Jawsmay not be the first American blockbuster, but it is certainly the most important.
