DeJaws Vu: Jaws swims back into the US box office charts
Cinema, we are told, is back, but it is more back to the past as this week’s US box office chart sees the return of Spider-Man: No Way Home, legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick still holding altitude and Jaws swimming back into moviegoers’ consciousness in IMAX and Real D 3D for the first time.
According to The Verge.com, on a per-theater basis, Jaws outperformed every other movie on cinema screens this weekend. It swallowed them whole.
The latter swam into the fifth highest grossing position for Friday, not a bad record for this vicinity as it is not only a 47-year-old film – which is widely available on VOD – but is also in a limited number of screens.
In all, on Friday the shark classic took a $870,000 bite out of the box office. Not bad for what would be concerned an old timer by many.
Others will have taken advantage of the $3 tickets on National Cinema Day on Saturday, According to Variety, the 1975 film was the tenth most popular film to watch on the Saturday, taking even more last gasp summer dollars this Labor Day weekend, which at least Mayor Vaughn would have been proud of.
Over the four-day weekend it would stay stalking that tenth position in the top ten, according to Deadline, grossing an estimated $1.2M over four days from 285 domestic big screens. Its total projected four-day haul is $2.73 million in 1,246 theaters. Jaws still has the power to chew through box office receipts.
Jaws saw unprecedented queues upon it’s original release in 1975
Dean Newman, Head of Content for The Daily Jaws, the worlds number one Jaws fansite, said: “The stature of Jaws just keeps on growing the older it gets, it being released in IMAX and 3D for the first time is giving something old and new fans alike to get excited about and experience the Steven Spielberg shark classic like we never have done before.
“Jaws, it really is a miracle of evolution and Jaws and shark film fans don’t need much of an excuse to see it on the big screen, but to see it on an even bigger screen or have the water lapping off the screen in 3D is something really special.”
Jaws opened in the US on September 2 and hits the UK on September 9, which means it has to wait a lot less time for it to surface in this new format for Jaws then it did in 1975. Back then Jaws opened in the US on June 20, but UK audiences had to wait until December 26 that same year to see what all fuss was about. It was well worth the wait though.
Jaws was last on US cinema screens during the pandemic, where it was pitted against that other Steven Spielberg monster movie, Jurassic Park (1993): Jaws and Jurassic Park slug it out at US box office — The Daily Jaws
Older films have been something of a hit this year, with the UK seeing all the James Bond films being shown in chronological release order, a new one hitting screens every week, and then there has also been Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan beaming down into auditoriums.
So, could the return of classic titles to big screens be the shape of fins to come for helping keep people returning to cinemas?
Words by Dean Newman
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