Dario Loce In the summer of 1975, a 28-year-old director named Steven Spielberg did more than just make audiences afraid to go in the water; he fundamentally and permanently altered the business of Hollywood. Jaws was a cultural phenomenon, a masterclass in suspense that became the first film in history to gross over $100 million at the box office. But its most profound legacy was not its story of a man-eating shark, but the revolutionary way it was marketed and released.
Before Jaws, summer was a cinematic dumping ground for low-prestige films. After Jaws, it became the prime season for high-concept, high-stakes, and high-grossing event movies. The film was a perfect storm of artistic ingenuity and commercial savvy that effectively ended the auteur-driven, experimental era of New Hollywood and created the blueprint for the modern blockbuster that studios still follow to this day.
The Birth of the Summer Blockbuster: A Revolution in Marketing
The genius of Jaws was not just in its filmmaking, but in the unprecedented marketing strategy that turned it into a national event. Universal Pictures took a massive gamble, abandoning the traditional “platform release” model—where a film would open in a few major cities and slowly expand—for a strategy of saturation and spectacle.
- Nationwide Release: In a move unheard of for a major studio picture at the time, Jaws opened simultaneously on over 450 screens across North America. This wide release was designed to capitalize on a massive, concentrated marketing push and create a sense of urgency for audiences everywhere.
- Television Advertising Blitz: Universal spent a then-staggering $700,000 on a national television ad campaign, saturating primetime network TV for three days leading up to the film’s release. These 30-second spots, a novelty at the time, brought the film’s terror directly into American living rooms, creating an inescapable buzz.
- Targeting the Summer Audience: The studio astutely recognized that summer, with its school holidays and vacation time, was a period of high leisure for a broad demographic, especially teenagers with disposable income. The film’s PG rating made it accessible to this key audience, and theaters became the ideal place to cool off and experience a shared thrill.
The strategy was an immediate and spectacular success. The film grossed $7 million in its opening weekend alone, and the limited number of screens created the very “lines around the block” the studio had hoped for. This model of a wide summer release backed by a massive TV marketing campaign became the new formula for Hollywood success. When Star Wars replicated and amplified this strategy two years later, the blockbuster era was officially born, and the quieter, more challenging films of the New Hollywood movement were pushed to the margins.
The Hitchcockian Blueprint: Crafting Suspense Without the Monster
The film’s artistic triumph was born from near-total disaster. The production was notoriously plagued by problems, from an unfinished script to feuding actors, but the biggest challenge was the trio of mechanical sharks (collectively nicknamed “Bruce”) that consistently malfunctioned in the saltwater of the Atlantic. This technical failure, which drove the production wildly over budget and schedule, became a blessing in disguise. Forced to work around his unreliable monster, Spielberg had no choice but to adopt a Hitchcockian approach to suspense: “It’s what we don’t see which is truly frightening.”
Instead of showing the shark, Spielberg suggested its presence, allowing the audience’s imagination to conjure a terror far greater than any mechanical prop could deliver. He achieved this through a masterful combination of techniques:
- The Shark’s Point of View: Spielberg frequently used underwater POV shots to place the audience in the perspective of the predator, creating a terrifying sense of vulnerability for the swimmers on the surface.
- Implication Over Revelation: The film’s horrific opening scene, in which the young swimmer Chrissie is attacked, is a masterclass in building terror through suggestion. We see her being thrashed violently, but the shark itself remains unseen, making the attack all the more horrifying.
- John Williams’ Iconic Score: The film’s most powerful tool of suspense is its legendary score. The simple, two-note ostinato (“dun-dun, dun-dun”) became the shark’s auditory signature, a primal heartbeat that signals impending danger. The theme allowed the shark to be a constant, terrifying presence in the film, even when it was nowhere to be seen. As Spielberg himself admitted, the score was responsible for “half the success of that movie.”
Thematic Depth: Man, Nature, and Capitalism
Beneath its thrilling surface, Jaws is a rich text that explores timeless themes. At its most primal level, it is a classic Man vs. Nature story, pitting three men against a force of nature that is pure, relentless, and instinctual. The shark is not evil; it is simply a predator, and the vast, indifferent ocean is its domain.
The film also serves as a sharp critique of Capitalism vs. Community Safety. The true villain of the film is not the shark, but Mayor Larry Vaughn, who repeatedly ignores the danger and keeps the beaches open to protect the town’s summer tourist revenue. His mantra of “summer dollars” over human lives is a damning indictment of a system where profit is prioritized above all else, a theme that resonated deeply in a post-Watergate America and remains chillingly relevant today.
Conclusion: The Legacy of the First Blockbuster
Jaws is a rare film that was both a revolutionary work of art and a revolutionary business enterprise. It elevated a B-movie creature feature into a masterpiece of suspense, proving that genre films could be both critically acclaimed and wildly profitable. In doing so, it gave Hollywood a new, intoxicatingly successful formula: the high-concept summer blockbuster. The era of challenging, auteur-driven cinema that defined the New Hollywood gave way to a new age of spectacle, franchises, and mass marketing. The shark may have been blown to pieces, but the shockwaves from its explosion created the Hollywood we still live in today.
