Birth of summer's blockbusters

USA TODAY


Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws started the summer blockbuster craze in 1975. For the time being, the blockbuster rules summer. As the two godfathers of the summer movie, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, enter the fray once more with Minority Report and Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones, USA TODAY's Susan Wloszczyna salutes the 10 movies that defined the summer blockbuster. These films not only reshaped the business of making and marketing movies, but also insinuated themselves into the filmy summer fabric of pop culture. In descending order of influence:


1. Jaws (June 20, 1975)

First-run box office. $243 million ($800 million adjusted for inflation)

Sight, song, sound bite: A gray dorsal fin slicing through the ocean. "Da dum. Da dum. Da-dum-da-dum-da-dum." "Bad fish! ... This shark, swallow you whole."

If the fake shark (nicknamed Bruce, after Spielberg's lawyer) were a better actor, Jaws would have been a movie about a resort-terrorizing monster. Mechanical difficulties forced the novice director to rely on the brio of his cast (Roy Scheider as the police chief, Robert Shaw as the old salt, Richard Dreyfuss as the cocky scientist) and adopt a less-fish-the-better philosophy. The result elicited screams from audiences and repeat business at the box office.

Biz innovations. Opening in 400-plus theaters, it instituted wide breaks instead of slow rollouts. (Event pictures now routinely open in more than 3,500 theaters.) Cleverly employed TV ads only hinted at the shark.

Blockbuster offspring. Thrillers with a sturdy rather than starry ensemble cast and an effects-reliant plot, especially disaster adventures such as Jurassic Park, Twister and Armageddon.

2. Star Wars (May 25, 1977)

First-run box office. $221 million ($646.7 million adjusted for inflation)

Sight, song, sound bite. The massive gray underbelly of an attacking spaceship ominously passes by. John Williams' majestic horn fanfare. "May the Force be with you."

The simple saga of good vs. evil was elevated by both a legend steeped in immortal myths andinnovative visuals. Hard to believe, but the opening scene was the first time a camera ever panned across a star field. "When we saw the first preview, it was amazing," remembers Alan Ladd Jr., who ran Fox back then. "When the ship went overhead, people were standing, cheering and applauding." But it wasn't just the hardware that wowed them. "The picture has emotional content, not just shoot-shoot, bang-bang."

Biz innovations. Lucas' master plan always included sequels and prequels. Now almost every blockbuster earns a second helping, or more, deserved or not. The movie also took toy tie-ins into the sales stratosphere.

Blockbuster offspring. Sci-fi outings such as Independence Day, any action flick with cutting-edge effects, any sequel.

3. National Lampoon's Animal House (July 28, 1978)

Box office. $120.1 million ($326.2 million adjusted)

Sight, song, sound bite. Bluto stuffing his mouth with mashed potatoes, punching his cheeks, spewing food and declaring, "I'm a zit — get it?" Louie, Louie. "Toga, toga, toga."

Fat, drunk and stupid may be no way to get through college, but it's one surefire method to score laughs. "We weren't breaking new ground for our audience. Just for the industry," says Harold Ramis, the SCTV skit-comedy grad who co-wrote the script. "Anyone who went to college experienced things gross and inhumane. It was the first film to have people behave as they really are."

Biz innovations. Showed how to milk youth market.

Blockbuster offspring. There's Something About Mary, American Pie and any academic-based comedy that revels in gross-out humor.

4. Top Gun (May 16, 1986)

First-run box office.$176.8 million ($285.7 million adjusted)

Sight, song, sound bite. Maverick's strut accessorized in Ray Bans and bomber jacket. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'. "I feel the need ... the need for speed."

This exhilarating ode to Navy jet pilots was really a John Wayne-style salute to dogfight daredevils, minus a declared war, with vroom-vroom air stunts designed for the video-game generation. At the controls was Tom Cruise, that slouching adolescent from Risky Business reborn as an ace fighter jock. "Top Gun helped him develop into a worldwide superstar," says producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

Biz innovations. Bruckheimer and partner Don Simpson's mucho-macho assembly line was born. Top Gun also heralded the return of the star vehicle, and Cruise at 24 was reinvented as an action hero of summer.

Blockbuster offspring. The Bruckheimer-Simpson brand, including Days of Thunder, The Rock, Con Air, Gone in Sixty Seconds and Pearl Harbor. And any Cruise summer movie not directed by Stanley Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut) or Ron Howard (Far and Away).

5. The Lion King (June 15, 1994)

Box office. (includes re-release through 1995): $312.9 million ($373.9 million adjusted)

Sight, song, sound bite. Simba the lion cub grieving over his father after his deadly fall. Hakuna Matata. "What do you want me to do, dress in drag and do the hula?"

Disney revived animation with The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992), which followed the same formula: a little song, a little dance, a little fun and a little romance for the holidays. But The Lion King was different, an original coming-of-age story starring African wildlife and a soundtrack by Elton John. Delays necessitated a summer opening. The result: a roaring box office success that has yet to be equaled by another animated movie. "Opening in summer seemed a bit of a gamble," says producer Don Hahn. "But if the movie works, you have three months of business. Every day is a holiday."

Biz innovations. Summer became prime real estate for animated properties. King also led to 'toon titan Jeffrey Katzenberg's creation of a new studio, DreamWorks, and the rest is Shrek.

Blockbuster offspring. The traditional 2-D splendor of Disney's Pocahantas, Mulan, Tarzan and upcoming Lilo & Stitch.

6. Raiders of the Lost Ark (June 12, 1981)

First-run box office.$231.2 million ($450.4 million adjusted)

Sight, song, score. A giant boulder hurtles toward our hero after he snatches a gold statue in a cave. John Williams' brawny "Ba-De-Da-Da" score. "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?

Spielberg and Lucas do it again, this time together as director and producer. Raiders was a newfangled Saturday matinee serial that was drunk on cliffhanger thrills, narrow escapes and lickety-split action, updated with effects but retaining some of its dated source's cheery cheesiness. At the center was Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones, a tomb-robbing archaeologist.

Biz innovations. With his fedora-topped adventurer, Ford staked his claim as the premier star of summer and would return as Indy twice more (and possibly a fourth), causing Hollywood to be even more franchise-mad.

Blockbuster offspring. Raiders' potent blend of ancient movie devices and pure fun wasn't as easy to copy as one might think, not even by its sequels. The makers of the recent Mummy movies and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider just think they come close.

7. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (June 11, 1982)

First-run box office. $243 million ($659.2 million adjusted)

Sight, song, sound bite. A silhouetted boy and his alien riding a bike into the heavens. John Williams' wish-upon-a-star score. "E.T. phone home."

Alien's message: galactic visitors bad. E.T.'s message: galactic visitors good. Spielberg got in touch with his inner child of divorce, played off of '50s paranoia about space creatures and founded a new genre: suburban sci-fi. The fable about an unlikely bond between a lost alien and a misunderstood middle child (Henry Thomas as Elliott) took a kid's point of view and loaded it with junior-high humor (E.T. guzzles beer), youthful fears of abandonment and an enchanting lack of the previous era's cynicism. Turns out, audiences were ready to believe.

Biz innovation. Forget teens. Catering to 10-year-olds and the 10-at-heart could pay off, too. So can product placement. Reese's Pieces, anyone?

Blockbuster offspring. Spielberg protégés and imitators launched such boy-wonder riffs as Back to the Future, The Goonies, Flight of the Intruder, Explorers, Gremlins and Stand by Me.

8. Batman (June 23, 1989)

First-run box office. $251.2 million ($358.7 million adjusted)

Sight, song, sound bite. The Joker's lascivious grin faces off with Batman's voluptuous lips. Prince's psycho-funk. "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

Superman in 1978 was a hero for the middle class. Batman, shrouded in darkness and cutting humor, was a hero for mental patients. Tim Burton took his macabre Beetlejuice sensibilities to the outer limits by reworking the comic-book adventure into a Goth fairy tale full of urban gloom, perverse obsessions and the dueling two-of-a-kind personalities of Jack Nicholson's demented Joker and Michael Keaton's disturbed caped crusader. "Batman redefined the hero," says executive producer Michael Uslan.

Biz innovations. A Bat franchise including three sequels (and counting). Plus, a realization that the grim themes found in comic books could draw the masses.

Blockbuster offspring. X-Men, Spider-Man and a brigade of comic-book movies in the works.

9. Ghost (July 13, 1990)

First-run box office. $217.6 million ($294.9 million adjusted)

Sight, song, sound bite. Yuppies in love at the pottery wheel. Unchained Melody. "Ditto."

Love Story with an afterlife. Death came between but couldn't quite separate Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in the supernatural thriller that romanticized an aging population's uneasy relationship with the Grim Reaper. In a summer with Total Recall and Die Hard 2, Ghost seduced with the perfect counterprogramming, a fantasy about how it's never too late to say "I love you." "Nobody saw this as a summer blockbuster," says director Jerry Zucker. "But Ghost did something they can't do anymore." That is, it opened at only $12 million and was allowed to build by word of mouth.

Biz innovation. Ghost made studios believe in the power of counterprogramming.

Blockbuster offspring. The supernatural continues to haunt summer with Phenomenon, The Sixth Sense, The Others and Signs, opening Aug. 2.

10. Ghostbusters (June 8, 1984)

First-run box office. $211.5 million ($360.4 million adjusted)

Sight, song, sound bite. A Godzilla-size marshmallow man lumbers down a Manhattan street. Ray Parker Jr.'s jaunty Ghostbusters theme, with its "Who ya gonna call?" refrain. "He slimed me."

Special effects don't just deliver a visual punch. They can make you laugh. That's what the crew who masterminded Ghostbusters realized when they developed their paranormal SWAT team who must halt a ghost outbreak in Manhattan. Says star Harold Ramis, who co-wrote the script with Dan Aykroyd: "Dan's idea was ghost janitors. While others run away in fear, we are mopping up."

Biz innovations. What was then the highest-grossing comedy of all time elevated Bill Murray's status as a sarcastic wisenheimer and proved sci-fi could have a sense of humor.

Blockbuster offspring. Ghostbusters II was a credible replay, but the jokey camaraderie was difficult to replicate, as last year's Evolution proved. But alien-infested Men in Black, whose sequel lands July 3, got the mix right

 

How much did T2 make in comparison to those listed??


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