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Our summer boxoffice is enjoying blockbuster business for TOY STORY 5 and on deck are MINIONS & MONSTERS (7/1), MOANA (7/10), THE ODYSSEY (7/17) & SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (7/31) that should keep July sizzling. We take summer mega-hits for granted now, but 51 years ago there weren’t any.

Blockbuster business requires very wide distribution with costly marketing campaigns to drive moviegoers into theatres opening weekend. That’s not something studios did until June 20, 1975 when Universal opened Steven Spielberg’s JAWS about a great white shark terrorizing a NY summer resort. It starred Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw & Richard Dreyfuss.

Spielberg wasn’t quite “Spielberg” yet. He’d only made one feature, Universal’s crime drama SUGARLAND EXPRESS with Goldie Hawn, but it put him on track to do much bigger things. For his next film, he convinced SE’s well connected power producers, Richard D. Zanuck & David Brown, to let him direct JAWS.

In 1973 Zanuck & Brown had purchased the movie rights to JAWS pre-publication for $175,000. JAWS had the right ingredients to become a blockbuster. It was based on Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel, 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 expensive TV ad campaigns. Films typically opened in New York & L.A. and, perhaps, a few other major markets where they were reviewed and generated publicity — in newspapers, magazines and on radio. As word of mouth spread, pictures would expand into more cities.

With JAWS, however, Universal did things differently. It knew from successful previews that it had something very promising on its hands and gave it a really wide opening for the time at 409 U.S. theatres. Within a month, JAWS expanded to 675 theatres and by mid-August to 954. A huge marketing budget (for its day) of $1.8M was committed, including $700,000 for a network TV 30-second ad blitz.

JAWS cost $7M to produce, twice its initial $3.5M budget due to problems shooting on water with a malfunctioning mechanical shark nicknamed Bruce. It opened to $7.1M — an amazing $17,265 per theatre  — and was the first film ever to gross over $100M. It wound up doing $280.1M domestic & $490.7M worldwide. JAWS spawned three sequels — JAWS 2 (1978), JAWS-3D (1983) & JAWS: THE REVENGE (1987).

JAWS was Hollywood’s top grossing film for the next two years until a new summer blockbuster arrived May 25, 1977 — 20th Century-Fox’s STAR WARS, from Spielberg’s pal George Lucas!