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When Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster JAWS opened 50 years ago, there weren’t any blockbusters.

Blockbuster business requires very wide distribution and co$tly marketing campaigns to drive moviegoers into theatres opening weekend. That’s not something studios did until 6/20/1975 when Universal launched a very young Spielberg’s terrifying thriller JAWS, starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw & Richard Dreyfuss, in which a great white shark terrorizes a Long Island, NY summer resort.

Spielberg wasn’t quite “Spielberg” yet. He’d only made one feature, Universal’s crime drama SUGARLAND EXPRESS, starring Goldie Hawn, but that put him on track for bigger things. He next convinced SUGARLAND’s well connected power producers, Richard D. Zanuck & David Brown, to let him direct JAWS. In 1973, they’d purchased the movie rights to JAWS pre-publication for $175,000. JAWS had all the ingredients to be a Hollywood blockbuster. Besides being based on Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel, it had a high concept action storyline and beach settings that were ideal for summertime moviegoing.

In those days, studios didn’t open movies at 4,000 theatres with multi-million dollar ad campaigns. Films typically opened in NYC & L.A. and, perhaps, a few other top markets to get reviewed by the major media, which were mostly based in NYC then, and to generate publicity in newspapers, magazines and on radio. There was no Internet or social media apps at the time to excite people about new movies. Word of mouth spread slowly and as it did pictures expanded into more cities.

With JAWS, however, Universal did things quite differently. It knew from having held highly successful previews that with JAWS it had something promising on its hands. Because of that confidence, the studio gave JAWS a very wide opening at 409 domestic theatres. Within a month, it widened to 675 cinemas and by mid-August to 954. A then huge marketing budget of $1.8M was committed, including about $700,000 for a network TV blitz of 30-second ads.

JAWS reportedly cost $7M to produce, double its original $3.5M budget. Most of the overrun was due to problems shooting on water with a malfunctioning mechanical shark nicknamed Bruce. To deal with that, Spielberg decided to just suggest the shark’s presence — but with ominous theme music by the then young composer, John Williams, to signal impending attacks. Williams went on to win the Oscar for best original dramatic score.

It all worked splendidly and JAWS opened to a then huge $7.1M — averaging $17,265 per theatre — and became the first film ever to gross over $100M. The picture did $260M domestic & $477.9M worldwide and  spawned three sequels — JAWS 2 (1978), JAWS-3D (1983) & JAWS: THE REVENGE (1987).

JAWS remained Hollywood’s top grossing film for the next two years — until a new summer blockbuster opened 5/25/1977 — STAR WARS, from Spielberg’s filmmaker pal George Lucas.