Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: First Film Released In 1,000 Theatres

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Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-03-2003, 07:11 PM:

Anyone know/remember what the first movie was to be released in North America with 1,000 prints?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 08-04-2003, 09:11 AM:

Should be able to find that information in back issues of The Hollywood Reporter or similar trade magazines that report print release information, including number of "opening" screens.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-04-2003, 12:25 PM:

I have what I think might be the correct answer to the question, and yes, the info was gleaned from the trades. However, I do not know if this title was the first to top 1,000, which is why I asked the question in an effort to generate a discussion.

The title I suspect might have been the first to top 1,000 prints was Raiders Of The Lost Ark, released June 1981, with 1,078 engagements. Didn't want to blurt it out in the initial post since I was curious to see how a discussion would develop.

BTW, the 1978, '79 and '81 re-releases of Star Wars all topped 1,000 prints and preceded the release of Raiders, but I consider this to be a technicality and I don't wish to count it. Big event films from that same timeframe such as Grease, Jaws 2, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, etc., all had engagements in the high hundreds but shy of 1,000. The Empire Strikes Back in '80 was a platform release.

I'll check out the possibility of something like The Blues Brothers or Airplane!.

[ 08-05-2003, 12:49 AM: Message edited by: Michael Coate ]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-04-2003, 12:30 PM:

JAWS is the movie that's always credited with launching the "summer blockbuster" phenomenon...maybe it's the one? I know it was playing pretty much everywhere that summer. (I saw it at the now-defunct, 1400-seat Fox Theatre in Billings.)

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-04-2003, 12:31 PM:

Nope, Jaws opened in about 400 or so theatres.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 08-04-2003, 01:31 PM:

"The Trial of Billy Jack", I would wager. Tom Laughlin came up with the mega-multiple opening blitz concept.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-04-2003, 05:50 PM:

Jaws was the first film to top the $100,000,000 mark thus becoming the first summer blockbuster.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 08-04-2003, 06:07 PM:

quote:
BTW, the 1978, '79 and '81 re-releases of Star Wars

It was 'Empire Strikes Back' that got re-released in July 1981. 'Star Wars (A New Hope)' was reissued in 1982, with an 'extra reel' that was a 15-minute 'preview featurette' for the then-titled 'Revenge Of The Jedi'.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-04-2003, 07:28 PM:

Funny I don't remember seeing a feturette on the Star Wars 82 re-release when it played in our area.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-04-2003, 07:48 PM:

quote:
It was 'Empire Strikes Back' that got re-released in July 1981. 'Star Wars (A New Hope)' was reissued in 1982, with an 'extra reel' that was a 15-minute 'preview featurette' for the then-titled 'Revenge Of The Jedi'.

Huh??!!

Star Wars was indeed re-released in those years I mentioned. You're not actually claiming it wasn't re-released in those years, are you??? I have the one-sheets... I have photocopies of newspaper ads from numerous cities... I have no clue what your point is in regard to this discussion re first movie to get released with 1,000 prints.

And I don't remember a 15-minute Jedi featurette. The August/September 1982 re-release presentation I saw of Star Wars began with a standard-length Revenge trailer, the same trailer included with the fall '82 Empire re-release.

quote:
Jaws was the first film to top the $100,000,000 mark thus becoming the first summer blockbuster.

While it is true that Jaws is generally regarded as the first "blockbuster," it was not the first film to break $100,000,000.

I believe The Sound Of Music, The Godfather, and The Exorcist all grossed over $100 million in their original runs prior to the release of Jaws. Jaws hit $100 million mark faster than the others, though.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 08-04-2003, 07:57 PM:

The original Billy Jack was four-walled with saturation advertising and I think they did this city by city to save on prints. I don't know about The Trial of Billy Jack but it seems likely it would be similar.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 08-04-2003, 08:28 PM:

Warner Bros. handled the four-wall release on "Billy Jack". But Tom Laughlin handled the four-wall release of "Trail of Billy Jack" in 1974. Remember "Trail of Billy Jack" was a message movie and had a running time of 170 minutes. It Bombed, big time.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-04-2003, 09:26 PM:

an interesting read below. It states in this artical that Jaws was the first film to top the $100,000,000 dollar mark and it seems I remember readin the same thing in the Jaws laserdisc box set that I have.

By Peter Howell
Toronto Star Movie Critic

All these years later, the scene still has the power to shock, titillate and make us gulp popcorn.

A buxom teen named Chrissie runs nude across a beach and dives into ocean waters barely lit by a setting sun. She swims out a few metres, then turns to smile at a friend left on the sand, who is struggling to strip off his clothes.

Chrissie's smile suddenly vanishes as she feels a powerful tug from below. She begins screaming as she realizes the tugs are coming from the teeth of something huge, something she can't see.

Chrissie is being eaten alive. The movie, as millions know, is Jaws.

"She Was The First"' screamed the advertising tag line in summer 1975, when Jaws was released with its horrific promise of multiple shark munchings.

But, in retrospect, it was really the movie itself that was the harbinger of things to come. Films and filmgoing have never been the same since.

A quarter century after Jaws first devoured its box office competition, it seems incredible to think of a summer without big movies and big monsters: literal beasts like Disney's $200-million Dinosaur, which opens today; or Godzilla 2000, which will be let loose in August; and star-driven ``500-pound gorillas'' like the Tom Cruise vehicle Mission: Impossible 2, which opens next Wednesday.

Dinosaur and M:I-2, as well as the hit Gladiator which arrived two weeks ago, herald the start of the 2000 blockbuster season: 16 weeks of movies making noise to match their vast budgets, pushed by saturation advertising and tie-ins with hamburgers, pop and toys.

This year's take-no-prisoners contenders include Jim Carrey's laugher Me, Myself And Irene (June 30); George Clooney's weather watch The Perfect Storm (June 30); Mel Gibson's battle epic The Patriot (June 30); and the latest comic book blow-up X-Men (July 14). You will know all about these movies even if you don't go to see them.

Back in 1975, though, there was no summer movie season to speak of and "blockbuster"' was an urban renewal term. The hot months were the time to go to the cottage or just stay home, watching television in cool basements.

Theatre owners tried all sorts of enticements - air-conditioning, free parking, contests - but moviegoing in general was way down. Weekly attendance had peaked at 78.2 million people in 1946, boosted by returning World War II soldiers, but competition from television and the flight to the theatre-scarce suburbs had slashed the figure to 15.8 million by 1971.

Movie studios in 1975 were still "platforming"' their films, releasing them in a few theatres in large cities and hoping for positive newspaper reviews and strong word-of-mouth that could be used to carefully expand to the hinterlands. Films were given a chance to find and build an audience.

Jaws changed everything. Universal Studios realized it had a hit on its hands, a genuine fright flick by a 28-year-old comer named Steven Spielberg. It had been murder to make - there had been major cost overruns, mechanical problems and weather delays - but it was sending test audiences into raptures of fear and shivers of delight.

Despite many misgivings, which he expressed loudly later, Spielberg had made a film that tapped deep into a collective dread, the fear of being consumed by an unseen Other.

Few people may remember the stars of Jaws - Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss - or its frankly ludicrous plot of a town more afraid of losing tourist dollars than tourist lives. But no one could ever forget the gut-tightening sight of watching Chrissie (played by former Penthouse pin-up Susan Backlinie) as she became an aquatic appetizer.

In his new memoirs Which Lie Did I Tell? veteran Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman describes the audience reaction to the first New York screening of Jaws, which he was invited to attend in the spring of 1975.

"I never remember any music hitting an audience like those first guttural notes of John Williams' great score," Goldman writes. "There were gasps two seconds in. And nobody spoke for two hours. Laughed a little. Screamed a lot. And 124 minutes later, when the lights came up, we all knew something remarkable was about to go out into the world."

Universal decided to go big right out of the gate, to capitalize on the advance buzz. On June 20, 1975, the studio released Jaws to a then unheard of 455 screens across North America. The previous widest release had been for The Towering Inferno the previous December, with 295 screens.

The Jaws release was backed by a $700,000 TV, radio and print advertising campaign, a phenomenal amount for the time. The pitch focused on the visceral image of the unsuspecting Chrissie swimming above the waterline as a great white shark zeroed in on her from below.

The movie also had the push of Peter Benchley's hit novel from which it was spawned, still on the bestseller lists.

Jaws was calculated to be a smash, but the movie made money beyond its makers' most avaricious dreams. It quickly became the first film in history to hit the $100 million mark at the box office, a much more difficult feat in the era of $3 tickets than today's $11 ducats.

For two years it topped the all-time movie box office chart, until Spielberg's friend George Lucas came out with Star Wars, which built on Jaws' bigger-louder-wider formula. Jaws remained in the box office Top 10 for most of the last quarter century, being knocked out only recently by the Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace and the horror hit The Sixth Sense.

Jaws was by no means the first movie blockbuster; D.W. Griffith's racist epic The Birth Of A Nation laid claim to that title way back in 1915. But Jaws was the first real summer blowout, and the first to use the smash-and-grab approach of immediate wide release coupled with full-tilt advertising. It presented itself as a must-see event that didn't depend on whether the movie was any good or not.

Studio executives took heed. Why waste time trying to win over your audience when you could bludgeon it into submission? All you needed to prompt the appropriate Pavlovian responses - hands into popcorn bucket, eyes to screen - was a big picture that would bypass the brain and go straight for the bloodstream.

Jaws sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs abounded, as the movie that begat the summer blockbuster (or "tentpole," to use Variety's term) also ushered in the era of the "high concept" film, one that could be pitched in a single shot, like a bullet to the brain.

As author Charles Fleming writes in High Concept, his recent biography of megamovie mogul Don Simpson (Con Air, The Rock), the name Jaws was uttered like a sacred oath in studio inner sanctums.

"Previous (Hollywood) executives had attempted to boil down plot and character to easily encapsulated ideas, warning writers and producers not to proceed with anything that couldn't be written down on a single piece of paper or the back of a book of matches.

"Now it had really been done. Jaws was `shark attack.' Alien was `Jaws in a spaceship' . . . The search for the next Jaws was on."

The search continues to this day, with such obvious imitators as last summer's Lake Placid and Deep Blue Sea, this year's Godzilla 2000 and Spielberg's own hugely successful returns to monstermania, Jurassic Park and The Lost World.

And for every blockbuster hit, there's at least one blockbuster dud, such as last week's John Travolta vanity project Battlefield Earth which crashed-and-burned at theatres everywhere.

The $100 million mark that seemed like the four-minute mile when Jaws crossed it has become the benchmark for movie success. Big-ticket pictures are now typically released to 3,000 or more theatres - nearly seven times Jaws' jaw-dropping rollout - to virtually guarantee an immediate No. 1 ranking at the box office.

Most movies that have reached or surpassed the $100 million mark in the past 25 years have been squarely in the blockbuster category of huge budgets, high concepts and major marketing programs.

The career boost he received from Jaws helped make Spielberg the most-watched man in Tinseltown, as both director and producer.

His numerous blockbuster successes bankrolled the 1995 creation of DreamWorks SKG, Spielberg's studio partnership with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen that lately can do no wrong. DreamWorks has the current No. 1 box office victor with the Ridley Scott epic Gladiator and also the reigning Oscar champ American Beauty.

But there was a price to be paid for the success of the Jaws formula, and it was paid in artistic terms. The studio risk-taking that had characterized the first half of the 1970s - evidenced by such classic films as Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and Robert Altman's Nashville - gave way to playing safe bets by the latter half of the decade, and the 20 years that followed.

Getting those safe bets meant spending increasingly more money on production, upping the ante with more elaborate special effects and $20-million salaries for stars that could ``open'' pictures with a splash.

"As costs mounted, the willingness to take risks diminished proportionately," writes author Peter Biskin in Easy Rider, Raging Bulls, his astute recent history of 1970s Hollywood.

"Morever, Jaws whet corporate appetites for big profits quickly, which is to say, studios wanted every film to be Jaws."

Biskin quotes disillusioned director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) who says the same thing in blunter terms: ``Jaws was devastating to making artistic, smaller films. They forgot how to do it. They're no longer interested.''

Even Spielberg expresses regret for the way Jaws changed movies. Speaking in John Baxter's 1996 biography Steven Spielberg, the wunderkind-turned-mogul says the ``violent, nasty, crude'' shark movie he struggled to make in 1974 was simply a means to an end, his ticket to the mainstream and the money to fund the pictures he really wanted to make.

These included his future blockbusters, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Jurassic Park.

"It was a calculated movie," Spielberg says of Jaws. "I made each cut with glee, knowing the effect that it would have on the audience. I don't ever want to be involved in another picture like that."

But it would be wrong to blame the dumbing-down and blowing-up of Hollywood entirely on Jaws. Indeed, the big fish movie is today a quaint example of old-time moviemaking values, since it was made entirely without computers: that scary shark was just a big rubber prop nicknamed Bruce, which had to be hidden for most of the movie (a great suspense device, as Spielberg later realized) because it didn't work properly.

Jaws could also be credited with boosting its polar opposite: the small or quirky comedy or drama that studios now use as counter programming, to appeal to moviegoers who don't want to join the blockbuster hordes on summer weekends.

In 1975, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, now the most successful cult film of all time, was launched with the tagline "A Different Set Of Jaws," and a clever visual pun of Tim Curry's rouged lips imitating the lethal Jaws choppers.

The counter-programming offensive continues to pay big dividends. Just last year, this strategy was put to good use against the Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace, the blockbuster to beat all blockbusters. The Julia Roberts-Hugh Grant romantic comedy Notting Hill opened the same weekend, attracting many grateful refugees from multiplex mayhem.

And give Jaws its due, which many will again do this summer when it is released on DVD in July, in a special edition hyped with even more mass marketing.

Nothing can match the dum-dum, dum-dum terror of knowing that something big and brutal lies lurking, waiting to attack. Sort of like the mixed emotions of bracing yourself for the onslaught of all the other summer blockbusters headed our way.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-05-2003, 01:10 AM:

quote:
It states in this artical that Jaws was the first film to top the $100,000,000 dollar mark

Well, what can I say...other than that I think the article is incorrect!

From The Hollywood Reporter Book Of Box Office Hits:

The Exorcist (1973): $89 million
The Godfather (1972): $86.2 million
The Sound Of Music (1965): $79.9 million

And before you ask what my point is, allow me to explain that the book identified the films by rental, which as most of you who work in the exhibition industry knows is a portion of a film's total gross, on average about 60 percent. Therefore, I'll maintain that the three movies listed above all grossed over $100 million at the domestic box office before the release of Jaws.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-05-2003, 01:32 AM:

Well, if you want to put it on a technicality standpoint then you are probably right. [Smile]

Question is are all those rental figures based on there original release or all the re-releases thrown in. Not sure, but the Jaws figures for hitting the mark were from it's original release. ALso would that number be all the grosses or the, as you say, Rental for the film.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-05-2003, 02:16 AM:

quote:
Well, if you want to put it on a technicality standpoint then you are probably right.

What's the technicality?

quote:
Question is are all those rental figures based on there original release or all the re-releases thrown in.

It probably incorporates re-releases. I'd have to check but I imagine subtracting any re-release revenue would still leave the original grosses above $100 million. Maybe not, though.

quote:
ALso would that number be all the grosses or the, as you say, Rental for the film.

Not sure what you mean here.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 08-05-2003, 03:00 AM:

I stand corrected, my bad: The Jedi trailer was attached to the print- The TRAILER for the summer '82 reissue of 'SW:ANH' mentioned 'A first glimpse of the new SW film 'Revenge...' (or something along those lines) They made it sound like it was going to be more than 'just a trailer'.

I ran the summer '82 SW:ANH at the drive-in. I ran ESB in its summer '81 re-release.

And you are right; my post had nothing to do with the first film to open in 1000 theatres. [Roll Eyes]

-Aaron

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-05-2003, 05:13 AM:

quote:
I ran the summer '82 SW:ANH at the drive-in. I ran ESB in its summer '81 re-release.

So what you're saying is: if you didn't run it, then it never happened?! [Smile]

Just so this doesn't become a point of contention in the future...

Pre-Special Edition, Original Trilogy re-releases:

Star Wars:
July 21, 1978*
August 15, 1979
April 10, 1981
August 13, 1982

The Empire Strikes Back:
July 31, 1981
November 19, 1982

Return Of The Jedi:
March 29, 1985
(preceded on 3/28 with nine-city triple feature)

*final seven weeks of original release....an "extended first-run" or "saturation mop-up run" with then-record 1,700+ prints, which I exempted from my original question due to feeling this was a special case: the movie ended with over 1,000 prints but didn't open with that many. I was curious about which movie opened with a nationwide, saturation-type release with over 1,000 engagements.

There were also some selected-market double and triple features at various times, mostly between '82 - '84.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-05-2003, 08:54 AM:

the technicallity would only be if the numbers used to report Jaws was the complete gross given when it broke the mark. In other words when they reported the film breaking $100,000,000 was that only the rental fees reported or was that the actual gross of the film.

Some info that I stumbled onto shows that films like Every wich way but loose opened in over 1000 theaters. That was 1978.

Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 08-05-2003, 08:58 AM:

I recall something being mentioned on the documentary on the Jaws DVD stating it was the first to the $100 million mark.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 08-05-2003, 08:41 PM:

Steve said:

quote:
The original Billy Jack was four-walled with saturation advertising

Yes, Steve, only it wasn't to save on prints -- in those days, most movies only ever had a handful of prints struck to begin with (comparitively speaking). Laughlin's biography describes how, after WB failed to promote the movie as well as he thought they should have, he bought the movie back from them so he could four-wall it. And the rest is history.

"The Trial of Billy Jack" was Laughlin's baby all the way, and he released it himself through his Taylor-Laughlin Corp. He was the first one to do a national advertising campaign on a single movie, opening in mulitple theatres across the country simultaneously. He related how he stood in a warehouse, amongst the many hundreds of new prints of "Trial", and wondered if he'd made a huge mistake.

I recall it was close to 1,000 prints (of a 9 reel movie!)... a record print order at the time.

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 08-12-2003, 02:17 PM:

Thr Trial of Billy Jack opened on November 13, 1974, in what Variety claimed "may be the largest national saturation launch of any pic in memory." It opened on 1300 screens and grossed $11 million. The total U.S. gross was $35 million or so in the United States. While Tom Laughlin 4-walled the film, WB handled the distribution chores.

One has to remember when comparing box-office gross to rentals, the distributor share has grown tremendously in recent years, now hovering, as Michael Coate stated, around 60 percent. However, back in the mid-70's, the aggregate rental (when all engagements of all kinds of films, (A, B, C, drive-ins, 1st, second, third, sub-runs, and second feature status) added up, the figure was around 37 percent. Of course, blockbuster films commanded more.

By opening Jaws wide, however, Universal did not get a lot of prime theatres, who refused to play films on a non-exclusive basis. In Hollywood, for example, it played the Pix Theatre, off the beaten path (by a few blocks). In San Francisco, it played the Coliseum, another theatre not in the major-tier of locations.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-13-2003, 07:13 PM:

here is an ad from our newspaper that ran 4-10-1981 for the star wars re-release.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 08-13-2003, 08:05 PM:

quote:
Thr Trial of Billy Jack opened on November 13, 1974, in what Variety claimed "may be the largest national saturation launch of any pic in memory."

I knew it was a lot of prints. Guess that's the answer, then. Thanks, Paul!
[Smile]

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 08-13-2003, 10:34 PM:

quote:
Jaws was the first film to top the $100,000,000 mark thus becoming the first summer blockbuster.

According to IMDB, the U.S. rental on SOM was 79.9 million, just where Michael Coate said it was. This translated to a box office gross of $163,214,286. Assuming this figure is correct, the vast majority of it would have been earned prior to the release of Jaws (SOM's last really big national re-issue was in 73-74).
Doctor Zhivago earned $60,954,000 in rentals from a domestic box-office of $111,722,000. Again, no really large re-issue happened after the era of Jaws.

IMDB also shows Gone With the Wind earning $79,375,000 from a total U.S. gross of $191,749,436. Surely at least $100 million of this came in before 1975.

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 08-13-2003, 11:19 PM:

quote:
Jaws was the first film to top the $100,000,000 mark thus becoming the first summer blockbuster.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-14-2003, 08:53 AM:

Well, I know Mike is looking into this as we write. The issue is this. The numbers that they used to report Jaw's breaking the hundred million mark. Did they use theater rental numbers or like they do today did they use the full total gross. Another thing the mark was broken on the films original release, no re-releases included. The other films mentioned included re-releases.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-14-2003, 03:12 PM:

Paul wrote:

quote:
According to IMDB, the U.S. rental on SOM was 79.9 million, just where Michael Coate said it was.

Except that I didn't get the figure from the IMDb. [Smile]

I prefer not referencing that site whenever possible. Or when I must, I try to find a second source.

quote:
This translated to a box office gross of $163,214,286.

That would mean the film's rental wasn't even 50 percent of the gross.

quote:
Assuming this figure is correct, the vast majority of it would have been earned prior to the release of Jaws

True, although the question here is whether it hit $100 million in its initial release, which I would define as both the roadshow/reserved seat engagement run and the general release that followed.

quote:
(SOM's last really big national re-issue was in 73-74).

The Sound Of Music also had a summer 1978 re-release, and although that was after the release of Jaws, I suspect that release's boxoffice tally is included in the figures we've been throwing around.

Darryl wrote:

quote:
The issue is this. The numbers that they used to report Jaw's breaking the hundred million mark. Did they use theater rental numbers or like they do today did they use the full total gross.

It would have been the full gross. The trades generally reported the full boxoffice take in their weekly articles and news items. Variety also had an annual (and semi-regular) listing of the all-time boxoffice champs, and that listing was typically ranked according to the rental rather than gross.

quote:
Well, I know Mike is looking into this as we write.

Watch this space for an update in a few days.

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 08-14-2003, 07:08 PM:

quote:
Except that I didn't get the figure from the IMDb. I prefer not referencing that site whenever possible. Or when I must, I try to find a second source.

Of course, in this case, they DID match up. So what was YOUR second source, Michael? (I gave two sources, you AND IMDB for the 79 million rental figure [Smile]

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-14-2003, 07:20 PM:

quote:
So what was YOUR second source, Michael?

My second source varies depending on what info I happen to be looking up on IMDb. I find that site to be great for some info, terrible for others. In the case of this boxoffice discussion, I didn't even go to the IMDb; my figure for The Sound Of Music (and The Godfather and The Exorcist) came from The Hollywood Reporter Book Of Box Office Hits, which I identified in a previous post in the thread.

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 08-16-2003, 12:52 AM:

quote:
my figure for The Sound Of Music (and The Godfather and The Exorcist) came from The Hollywood Reporter Book Of Box Office Hits, which I identified in a previous post in the thread.

Let us agree, then, that in this case, the figure IMDB gave is probably accurate.

quote:
The Sound Of Music also had a summer 1978 re-release, and although that was after the release of Jaws, I suspect that release's boxoffice tally is included in the figures we've been throwing around.

Very probably true, although I strongly suspect the 1978 re-release didn't contribute much revenue to the total (this release was nowhere near the scale of the 1973 re-issue).

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-24-2003, 06:09 PM:

Re the first film released in 1,000 theatres all at once....

Tim Reed wrote:

quote:
"The Trial of Billy Jack", I would wager.

Paul Linfesty wrote:

quote:
The Trial of Billy Jack opened November 13, 1974, in what Variety claimed "may be the largest national saturation launch of any pic in memory." It opened on 1300 screens...

OK, I referenced a few items. Unfortunately, there is no consistency between them.

The Hollywood Reporter (October 10, 1974):
Taylor-Laughlin Distribution Co., which harvested a $75 million gross for "Billy Jack" through its four-walling strategy, has a new game plan readied for the Nov. 13 opening of "The Trial Of Billy Jack" sequel. On that day, Taylor-Laughlin plans to make "this entire nation Billy Jack country" by simultaneously releasing the film in 1,300 theatres.

Variety (October 17, 1974):
When "The Trial Of Billy Jack" bows in about 175 situations in 50 TV markets across the country, a portion of the dates will be four-wall engagements.

Variety (November 20, 1974):
Though "record breaking" is a term most showbiz personalities learn shortly after "dada," the 1000 plus dates for "The Trial Of Billy Jack," Laughlin's message-laden addendum to "Billy Jack" seems to qualify as a latter-day first week record.

Boxoffice (November 25, 1974):
Billy Jack is now big business, if not an institution, as evidenced by this film's opening in 800 theatres across the country November 13.

Undated Warner Bros. press release:
Distribution of "The Trial Of Billy Jack," the enormously successful Taylor-Laughlin sequel to "Billy Jack," will be assumed by Warner Bros. on Christmas day with openings in 1000 coast-to-coast theatres.
.

Re first film to gross $100 million....

Darryl Spicer wrote:

quote:
[For Jaws,] did they use the theater rental numbers or did they use the full total gross?

They used the full gross. Variety reported that Jaws topped $100 million in domestic boxoffice gross on August 17, 1975, its 59th day of release, by which time the number of engagements had increased to 900+ from an initial launch of 400+. In fact, Universal Pictures initially reported only gross figures, withholding rental figures and, as a result, made it difficult for the industry to determine when the movie would become the top-rental film of all-time, which is how the industry ranked such revenue figures at the time ("Sockeroo Jaws Gross; What About Rentals?," Variety, August 27, 1975).

More research is required regarding the grosses of the other films in question (The Sound Of Music, The Godfather, The Exorcist). Stay tuned.

[ 08-24-2003, 09:46 PM: Message edited by: Michael Coate ]

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-24-2003, 07:52 PM:

...and are they expressed in "today's dollars?"

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 08-24-2003, 09:16 PM:

No, Manny. Inflation was not facored in.

quote:
Unfortunately, there is no consistency between them.

One major problem is that number of theatres and grosses weren't completely available, even to the trades back in (and up to) the seventies. For example, the weekly box office chart in Variety was only a sample of 22-24 or so key markets. As Michael Coate stated, the usual comprehensive numbers were found in the yearly rental charts.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 02-24-2004, 01:13 AM:

Revisiting an old thread....

quote:
Jaws was the first film to top the $100,000,000 mark thus becoming the first summer blockbuster.

quote:
Jaws quickly became the first film in history to hit the $100 million mark at the box office, a much more difficult feat in the era of $3 tickets than today's $11 ducats.

quote:
While it is true that Jaws is generally regarded as the first "blockbuster," it was not the first film to break $100 million. I believe The Sound Of Music, The Godfather, and The Exorcist all grossed over $100 million in their original runs, all prior to the release of Jaws.

quote:
I recall something being mentioned on the documentary on the Jaws DVD stating it was the first to the $100 million mark.

I believe the $100 million mystery is solved. The confusion stems from the difference between grosses (the total amount of ticket sales) and rentals (the portion of the gross returned to the distributor based on the booking terms). Jaws was the first movie to top $100 million in rentals. It appears that none of the articles or references mentioned earlier made the distinction between gross and rental.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 02-24-2004, 02:18 PM:

I, for one, never doubted the claim that "Jaws" was first to reach $100M since no other producer/distributor contested it. One would imagine if there was actually another film to reach such a milestone that the makers of that film would be anxious to receive recognition.

It is good to have an answer to the "rentals versus grosses" question but I would like to see a citation of a source to back up the declaration that "the mystery has been solved."

Mike: Are you researching this information for an article, or are you just satisfying your personal interest?

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 02-24-2004, 07:14 PM:

quote:
I, for one, never doubted the claim that "Jaws" was first to reach $100M since no other producer/distributor contested it. One would imagine if there was actually another film to reach such a milestone that the makers of that film would be anxious to receive recognition.

Yeah, but I contested the claim earlier in the thread. Why didn't you speak up?? And I believe the claims are still wrong because without a specific mention of rental most people will assume a gross is what is being cited, particularly today since we are inundated with news coverage of boxoffice performance and whose figures are always referred to as gross ticket sales. "Jaws," most definitely was not the first film to gross $100 million, which is why I spent much of the earlier part of this thread focusing on looking for references to the grosses of earlier films such as "The Sound Of Music" and "The Godfather" to support my claim.

quote:
It is good to have an answer to the "rentals versus grosses" question but I would like to see a citation of a source to back up the declaration that "the mystery has been solved."

"The Hollywood Reporter Book Of Box Office Hits" by Susan Sackett, 1996 Revised Edition, page 240: "The picture had the honor of being the first film to break the $100,000,000 mark in rentals...."

The book's data was principally sourced from the trades, and all figures included are rentals rather than grosses.

quote:
Mike: Are you researching this information for an article, or are you just satisfying your personal interest?

No, this information is not for an article. The article research had been for the subject of the first film to get distributed with over 1,000 prints (more on that in a bit), exclusives and platforms and the transition to saturation releases, etc. and, during the course of the thread, the topic drifted to boxoffice figures. While researching boxoffice figures for a different movie and different project I decided to look into the "Jaws" situation again so that part of this thread could achieve some closure...which I hope it has, at least for those interested in the subject.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 02-24-2004, 07:59 PM:

quote:
Why didn't you speak up??

Coz I couldn't prove it. [Smile]

I figured the last thing you needed was somebody else injecting an opinion when you were clearly searching for the truth. Good work. [thumbsup]

Now...

...Let's get back to settling that 1,000 print business, shall we?

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 02-26-2004, 01:44 AM:

quote:
Now...
...Let's get back to settling that 1,000 print business, shall we?

Well...the consensus appears to be that The Trial Of Billy Jack took the prize. But, there was a lot of conflicting information contained in the many trade references mentioned earlier. So...assuming (for the sake of continuing the thread) that The Trial Of Bily Jack had fewer than 1,000 initial engagements, I'll throw out the following possible "firsts with 1,000 prints" and related bits of data I've managed to compile since the thread began. (Note the conflicts and hype-ish nature of much of the information.)

King Kong (1976)
Pic is scheduled to open at upwards of 2,600 houses in the U.S., with the De Laurentiis office reporting "a huge advance". (Variety, "Says Dino: Count On A Kong X-Mas," May 19, 1976)

Paramount Pictures is planning a monster saturation preem for the Dino De Laurentiis remake of "King Kong," now scheduled as the company's big 1976 Christmas release. Par's senior veepee in charge of domestic distribution, Norman Weitman, told Daily Variety the company will be booking the largest number of prints in its history for the bow, something in the neighborhood of 1000. (Daily Variety, "Par Plans Monster 1000-Print Saturation For 'Kong' Remake," February 19, 1976)

The Dino De Laurentiis production of "King Kong" began its world premiere engagements December 17 in New York and Los Angeles. "King Kong" also opened at 1,000 theatres across the U.S. and Canada the same day. (Boxoffice, "King Kong Is Launched In Over 1,000 Locations, undated article)

At 961 theatres across the U.S., "Kong" grossed $6,967,164 in the first three days of release. (Variety, "Kong Wants Jaws Boxoffice Crown," December 22, 1976)

Flanked by a large bottle of aspirin and a stack of telegrams from around the world, Dino De Laurentiis sits in his office in the Gulf & Western building in New York contemplating a world in which 2,200 theatres have been playing his "King Kong" remake since Friday (17). The question is unavoidable. Can "Kong" best the Great White Shark of "Jaws" and become the biggest and fastest grossing film in the history of the biz? (Variety, "Kong Wants Jaws Boxoffice Crown," December 22, 1976)

While "Kong" is a major grosser, the widely publicized desire to beat Universal's "Jaws" is becoming less realizable. Specifically, the 12-day domestic b.o. of "Kong" ($19,800,000) is significantly less than the opening 10-day domestic b.o. of "Jaws" ($21,115,354) in 409 houses vs. 964 for "Kong." (Daily Variety, "$31.8 Mil 12-Day World B.O. For Kong," December 30, 1976)

Star Wars
Fox reopened Star Wars for a seven-week release to 1,756 theatres during the summer of 1978, resulting in the greatest number of prints ever bought for any picture. (The Movie Business Book, edited by Jason E. Squire, 1983, Fireside, chapter: "The Studio As Distributor," Peter S. Myers)

Grease
1,580 engagements during 1979 re-issue (undated, incomplete notes)

Friday The 13th
1,100 theatres. (Incomplete notes, The Hollywood Reporter, May 13, 1980)

Bronco Billy
1,316 engagements..."The Largest Single Break In The History Of Motion Pictures" (Warner Bros. trade ad, The Hollywood Reporter, May 30, 1980)

Any Which Way You Can
Any Which Way You Can, one of Warner Bros.' three Christmas offerings, wound up the boxoffice champ for the holiday weekend racking up $10,091,105 playing in 1,572 engagements. (The Hollywood Reporter, "Warners' 'Any,' Col's 'Crazy' Leading Pack In Christmas B.O.," December 30, 1980)

Others
Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Superman II and The Cannonball Run were booked into a record 1,078, 1,395 and 1,673 theaters, respectively. (The San Diego Union, "How Moviegoers Are Screened Out By Hype," July 15, 1981)