On June 19, 1975, Hollywood still looked at summer the way it always had: As the place crummy movies went to die. Studios saved their best titles for release during the fall and the winter holidays. Conventional wisdom claimed nobody went to the movies, at least in any great numbers, when the weather turned warm.
On June 20, 1975, Jaws opened in hundreds of theaters around the country — and everything changed.
Directed by a young upstart named Steven Spielberg, Jaws became an instant smash hit. Within weeks, it was a cultural phenomenon. In months, it was the highest-grossing film of all time. (To this day, it is still the seventh-highest-grossing movie in history when you adjust for inflation.)
It didn’t take much longer than that for Hollywood to recognize the potential in more releases like Jaws: High concept pictures (many based on best-selling novels) released during the summer in theaters coast-to-coast, backed by major marketing budgets. Two years later, Star Wars arrived, proved even more successful than Jaws, and cemented that release model as the new industry standard.
Understanding Jaws’ impact is easy; 50 years later, we still live in the world it made. Understanding why it made such an impact is a little trickier. In his book The Jaws Log, the film’s co-writer, Carl Gottlieb, said he wished he could figure out “what the formula is to create an iconic (or ironic) work. The process remains mysterious and unknowable.”
If the guy who wrote the damn film can’t explain it, I’m not going to be able to either. But I can tell you why I love Jaws, and why I think it’s not only influential, but powerful and timeless as well. In fact, since this is Jaws’ 50th anniversary, I’ll give you 50 reasons why. That sounds like a lot but I could have easily written more. I’ll tell you what: If I’m still here for Jaws’ 100th anniversary, I’ll write another 50 reasons.
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