The Day JAWS Bit Through The $100 Million Box Office Barrier
We all know that there are 100 million reasons to love Jaws, this particular one though is about celebrating the day, July 26, when Jaws chomped it’s way to become the first film in history to devour $100 million at the US box office, which it did after just 38 days of release.
That may sound like small change today, but back in 1975 tickets cost a lot less, in fact if you adjust the US domestic takings for Jaws today - $260 million - it is still a powerful player, taking in excess of $1.153 billion. Not a bad box office record for this vicinity.
Even more impressive is when you look at its adjusted worldwide gross of $471 million, in 2019 money that still stands at a Jaws dropping $2.1 billion. That will buy anyone a lot of roast!
The Avengers: Endgame - with its $2.791 worldwide gross - has wrestled the box office crown from its previous incumbent, Avatar. Of course it’s director, James Cameron, toppled his own previous best, Titanic - see what you can do with a bigger boat?
And before that it was a certain Steven Spielberg with Jurassic Park, who again had knocked his very own E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial from the top spot, which in turn had taken over George Lucas’ Star Wars, which was the very first to knock Jaws from apex earner at the cinema.
It’s an elite group then, as it has been dominated by Spielberg, Lucas or Cameron only for thee last 44 years, until the Russo brothers came on the scene.
They won’t remain there indefinitely, but Jaws will always be the first to hit that special triple digit figure, heralding the birth of the summer blockbuster as we know it. And Hollywood needs summer dollars.
Words by Dean Newman
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