It was 1975 when Universal Pictures decided to dump an unknown director’s over-budget dud, full of technical mishaps, into theaters June 20. The move made sense: It was an acknowledged fact that people wouldn’t turn out in force for a summer movie, so studios used the warm months to dispose of their weakest productions.
But June 20, 1975 proved a fateful day as Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” drew people out of the sun and into darkened theaters, raking in record box-office returns. The summer blockbuster was born.
A fundamental shift occurred: no longer would Memorial Day to Labor Day be seen as a cinematic wasteland, but rather the months would be exploited for their ability to attract kids who have the summer off of school. And, as Hollywood quickly figured out, with children must come parental escorts.
During the duration of the 1970s as well as the ’80s and ’90s, films like “Star Wars,” “Back to the Future,” “Independence Day,” “Ghostbusters,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E. T.: The Extra Terrestrial” and “Jurassic Park” made once-unfathomable sums of money, and they all did it with summer release dates (the latter three coming from the same director who once saw his “Jaws” left to die in the June sun).
Then, in 1996, just when studios were accustomed to the new formula (blockbusters in the summer, more laid-back family films around Thanksgiving and Academy Award material in December), a film shook things up once again. Friday, May 10, “Twister” was released, and by the time Sunday evening rolled around, the movie had claimed over $40 million. How could this be? Kids are still in school on May 10, and yet “Twister” raked in a total of nearly $250 million in the United States alone.
It seems that as more and more potential hit films get crammed into the summer, studios keep trying to get the jump on their competition by unloading their prized gems even earlier. Memorial Day is no longer of any real significance, as the entire month of May has become fair game.
In 2001, “Shrek” made Dreamworks wealthy when it opened in the middle of May. But that was nothing compared to last year, when “Spider Man” opened on the first weekend after April to an unprecedented, jaw-dropping $114 million (no film had ever crossed the nine-digit mark in its opening weekend before).
Times have truly changed. This April, Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson co-starred in “Anger Management” which earned over $42 million during its opening weekend and which is still going strong at the box office. Five years ago, one would never have seen such a project with two elite A-list actors before Memorial Day, let alone during April.
But “Anger Management” couldn’t steal the pre-Memorial Day slot for 2003 because “X2,” a film that has the potential to score one of the all-time largest opening draws, is opening May 2. Why couldn’t “Anger Management” slip in after “X2” quiets down but before the June rush? Because “The Matrix: Reloaded,” another titan of a film, is making its entrance May 15.
Summer 2003 has the potential to be the strongest summer ever for cinema, with “2 Fast 2 Furious,” “Bruce Almighty,” “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,” “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde,” “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” “Bad Boys II” and “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life” all opening after “X2” and “The Matrix: Reloaded” get audiences back into the habit of overpaying for popcorn.
And there are no signs of Hollywood’s trend of summer anxiety dying down. “Mission Impossible 3” has already been slated for a tentative release of May 21, 2004 — a full 10 days before Memorial Day.
Why the rush so far in advance? Because “Shrek 2” and “Spider-Man 2” have already grabbed June and July’s prime dates.
