Jaws at 50: How a Powerful Marketing Campaign Led to the Biggest Summer Movie of All Time
Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic Jaws is back in theaters this weekend in celebration of the film’s 50th anniversary, and yet, it almost wasn’t even released in Summer 1975. That’s right, the prototypical summer blockbuster was originally scheduled for Christmas 1974, but because of budget overruns and technical difficulties that dogged the film’s shoot, Universal was forced to push the film back to June 20, 1975. But what must have been frustrating at the time proved fortuitous when Jaws ended up becoming the highest-grossing film ever made upon its release.
How did Jaws get to that point? Naturally, the first step was that Steven Spielberg, still a fledgling director having done a handful of TV movies and one theatrical feature, made a terrific film. Not only that, but he made a terrific summer film, a movie that reminds you of the beach and the heat and the smell of the ocean, so the release date change was fortuitous and gave Universal more time to consider how they were going to sell the movie to audiences. So, what did they do in the year leading up to Jaws’ that led them to putting out one of the most successful films of all time.
The Book and Poster Art
Roger Kastel’s original illustration for the 1974 Jaws paperback
Before Jaws was ever a glimmer in Spielberg’s eyes, it was a novel by Peter Benchley whose screen rights was optioned by Universal before it even reached publication. After much debate at the publishing company Doubleday over the various marketing elements such as the title and cover artwork. Originally, Benchley’s idea for a cover that showed an illustration of Amity Island through the mouth of a shark was rejected for fear that people would think the book was about dentistry more than a killer shark. Eventually, for the hardcover edition, they settled on an image featuring the underside of a massive shark head swimming up towards a much smaller swimmer. Even then, the publishers weren’t entirely happy and, when it came time to publish the paperback, they commissioned illustrator Roger Kastel to do a redesign featuring a much more ferocious-looking shark, and this illustration was so effective that Universal decided to keep it for the film’s poster.
Universal, meanwhile, knowing they could have a potential hit on their hands, did everything they could to control the book’s publication and make sure it got in the hands of all those who could assist in promoting the book. Copies of the book were sent to heads of large corporations, restaurant owners, and personal friends of the two producers of the film who worked in broadcasting. This began a word-of-mouth campaign that also had Universal’s regional field man assisting in the publication and promotion of the book across the country, particularly near the Martha’s Vineyard area, where filming of the Spielberg film was taking place. Thus, before anybody outside of the studio had seen a frame of footage, Jaws was turning into an event film.
The Trailers
Title card image from the film’s original teaser trailer
Much like the film itself, the first few trailers for Jaws wisely stayed away from actually showing the shark on screen, but rather building up dread by knowing it’s in the water without being able to see it. In fact, the first teaser shows no real footage from the movie at all - only undersea stock footage and an animated shark mouth (complete with chomping sound effect) playing on screen as John Williams’s soon-to-be-legendary score plays over the soundtrack and cheaply animated title cards warn the audience about the dangers of swimming in the summertime. A more effective teaser came a few months later which was a 1-minute cutdown of the first scene of the film where a female swimmer is eaten by the shark. Over the undersea footage, a narrator instills dread in the audience with lines like “It is as if God made the devil, and gave him…JAWS.”
A more traditional trailer followed giving audiences a condensed, chronological version of the whole film, including a number of quick-cut scenes featuring the characters of Brody, Quint, and Hooper on the boat tangling with the shark from the film’s climax. However, much like the first two trailers and much of the film, the trailer doesn’t actually give audiences a good look at the shark. The most you see of the shark is its fin as it hunts various swimmers and the three men looking to take it down, but the marketing team knew the most effective way they could sell the terror of the shark is the terror it instills on the population of Amity Island.
They didn’t limit themselves to theatrical marketing, though, because on the days leading up to release, Universal spent an unheard-of sum to purchase ad space on every show airing on prime time across the three major networks the night of June 18th, 19th, and 20th, assuring that anybody who watched TV that night would see their TV spot and be aware that Jaws would be opening in theaters that week. Even then, the studio insured more press coverage by booking a number of talk show appearances with the film’s cast, some as far out in advance as 7-8 months. All in all, the amount they spent marketing the film was referred to by Universal’s publicity director at the time as “the largest expenditure on advertising of a release in the history of the company:”
The Release Strategy
People discuss Jaws as if it was the first film to go ultra-wide upon its release, opening in more than 1,000 theaters at a time when most movies opened in the bigger cities first before moving out to the country. Indeed, the original plan was to release the film in over 1,000 theaters and capitalize on all the nationwide hype they had been building up, but once executives saw the film at a screening in Long Beach. They decided to pare back their original bookings to a little over 400 theaters. Unlike today where this could be considered a sign of a lack of confidence, Universal actually made this decision because they saw how well the film played with an audience and knew that, if they held it back and continued to build hype through the first, limited number of bookings, it would make the demand that much higher in the long run. They also said that, with a more limited number of theaters, they would be able to run the film longer at each theater and increasing its lifespan.
These combined marketing strategies worked as, upon its release, Jaws began breaking records right away. It grossed $7 million on its opening weekend, a truly staggering number at the time, and ended up making over $21M in its first 10 days of release (while still staying at its original 400-screen count). Eventually, the marketing combined with incredible word-of-mouth and a timely summer release made it the first film to make over $100 million at the North American box office, earning what would be today’s equivalent of $741 million only on its initial release, while it continued to gross more over the next few years after the re-release market kicked in.
Jaws was a once-in-a-lifetime event, of course, and the film wouldn’t have been so massive if it hadn’t also been a masterpiece, but in a day when the theatrical market is struggling, it’s worth taking a page from some of cinema’s great success stories and seeing how their marketing and publicity decisions could lead to more successful gambits in the modern day.