Film Marketing and the Creation of the Hollywood Blockbuster

University of Mississippi University of Mississippi

eGrove eGrove

Honors Theses

Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale

Honors College)

2015

Film Marketing and the Creation of the Hollywood Blockbuster Film Marketing and the Creation of the Hollywood Blockbuster

Colton J. Herrington

University of Mississippi. Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College

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FILM MARKETING

THE CREATION OF THE HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER

Colton Jordan Herrington

A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Mississippi in

partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Sally McDonnell

Barksdale Honors College.

Oxford

2015

Approved by

_____________________________________________

Advisor: Dr. James Lumpp

_____________________________________________

Reader: Professor Scott Fiene

_____________________________________________

Reader: Dr. Victoria Bush

ii!

Colton Jordan Herrington

iii!

This thesis is dedicated to my favorite fellow cinephile - my

brother and best friend Brock.

iv!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank both Dr. James Lumpp for his constant guidance,

advice, and insight and my family for their unwavering love, support,

and encouragement.

ABSTRACT

COLTON JORDAN HERRINGTION – Film Marketing and American

Cinema: The Creation of the Hollywood Blockbuster

The purpose of this study is to trace the Hollywood blockbuster from its

roots, gain insight into how Steven Spielberg’s

Jaws

and George Lucas’

Star Wars

ushered in the “Blockbuster Era”, and explore how the blockbuster has evolved

throughout the subsequent decades into its current state. This case study

uncovers the intertwining relationship between revolutionary film marketing

tactics and the creation of the blockbuster as a genre and strategy and observes

how increased costs of film marketing and the rise of ancillary markets and new

media have led to a contemporary slate of blockbusters alternatingly different

and similar from those in earlier decades. The study also suggests that the

blockbuster and the film industry as a whole may be on the verge of a new film

revolution.

(Under the direction of Dr. James Lumpp)

vi!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES...............................................................................................................................................viii

CHAPTERS

I. An Introduction.........................................................................................................................1

A. The Blockbuster Prototypes.......................................................................3

B. The Essentials of Film Marketing..........................................................7!

Research.........................................................................................8!

Paid Advertising....................................................................10!

Publicity......................................................................................12!

Promotion..................................................................................13!

II. The Emergence of the Blockbuster Era................................................................16

A. The Trailblazers of the Seventies........................................................17

Jaws

: The Original Blockbuster..............................................19!

ii.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

................................24!

!!!!! ! ! B. Aftermath: The Eighties Through the Nineties.......................28!

! ! ! ! i. The Blockbuster Franchise........................................................29!

! ! ! ! ii. The Rise of the Ancillary Markets......................................35!

III. The Blockbuster Era: Part II – A New Century...............................................43

! ! ! A. The Return of George Lucas..................................................................45!

! ! ! B. The Millennials: The Franchise and the Familiar...................49!

i. The Big Three......................................................................................51

Animation..................................................................................56!

Comics..........................................................................................57!

vii!

Fantasy and Science Fiction..........................................61

! ! ! ! ii. Innovations in Modern Movie Marketing.....................67!

! IV. The Blockbuster Era: Issues from Past to Present.........................................80!

! ! ! A. The Future of the Blockbuster..............................................................85!

! V. Final Thoughts........................................................................................................................92!

APPENDICES............................................................................................................................................................95!

! Appendix A: Films to Cross $1 Billion Worldwide........................................................95!

Appendix B: All Time Number One Grossing Films..................................................96

REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................................................97!

viii!

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Top 10 Adjusted Domestic Highest Grossing Films..................................................4!

Figure 2: Top 10 Unadjusted Domestic Highest Grossing Films...........................................5!

Figure 3: Movie Advertising Spending by Medium......................................................................11

ix!

“The making of blockbusters is the newest art-

form of the 20

century”

Robert Evans, producer of

The Godfather

, to

TIME

magazine

in 1974

CHAPTER I: AN INTRODUCTION

At barely a century old, the United States film industry has experienced an

enormous amount of change since its inception with the 1915 release of its first

feature-length film: director D.W. Griffith’s

The Birth of a Nation

. Along with this

release, an eventual multi-billion dollar industry was born. (Koszarski, 1 – 8)

In the almost one hundred years of cinema to follow, show stopping films

such as 1939’s

Gone with the Wind,

1975’s

Jaws

, and 2012’s

The Avengers

have

become ingrained in popular American culture, defining their respective

generations and inspiring generations of moviegoers to come.

Besides inhabiting a special corner in American cinema history, what do

all three of these films have in common? These films each achieved enormous

national and commercial success, and subsequently, can be described as

blockbusters – though

Jaws

holds the distinction as being the first blockbuster in

the modern sense and

Gone with the Wind

as a blockbuster prototype, critical to

the development of the genre. (Shone, 27 – 29)

Although the word “blockbuster” is now a staple of pop culture vocabulary,

its exact origin can be traced back to extreme circumstances. During World War

II, newspapers described the massive bombs utilized by Allied forces as

“blockbusters” because they had enough power to level entire city blocks. Before

long, the word became synonymous with anything deemed powerful or as a force

to be reckoned with.

Variety

– a magazine centered on the entertainment industry – began

using the term as early as 1951 to describe movies generating impressive profits,

but it wasn’t until the release of

Jaws

in 1975 that the term entered mainstream

vocabulary as the descriptor of choice for films succeeding on a large scale.

(Acland, 11 - 13)

A film can be considered a blockbuster when it combines a huge

production budget and an extensive marketing campaign to generate enormous

box-office receipts. Although it is important to note that with early blockbusters,

both production and marketing budgets were considerably smaller when

compared to similar current fare.

Regardless, with such large sums of money involved, much is at stake for

every company involved at each stage in a respective blockbuster’s production,

promotion, and release: distributors, producers, studios, exhibitors, and any mix of

the four imaginable.

While common sense would suggest that marketing a film – essentially,

making people aware that the product exists – would ensure its success, the first

intensive marketing strategy was not utilized until 1975 with the release of

director Steven Spielberg’s

Jaws

Ever since, though, and just as the forceful nature of its namesake

suggests, blockbusters have emerged as a powerful, almost unstoppable force in

modern cinema, becoming a genre in their own right.

Before jumping into Spielberg’s shark-infested waters that gave rise to the

genre proper, the evolution of the blockbuster begins with a story set in the

American South of the 1860s.

A. THE BLOCKBUSTER PROTOTYPES

As mentioned before, American cinema as an industry dawns with

The

Birth of a Nation

in 1915, and while this motion picture can be distinguished as the

first prominent feature film, the true prototype of the American blockbuster lies

in another American epic:

Gone with the Wind

. (Shone, 30)

Directed by Victor Fleming and produced by David Selznick,

Gone with the

Wind

immortalizes the American South before, during and after the Civil War. It

remains a box office success today and a permanent fixture in classic American

cinema. Its success can be owed somewhat to Fleming and Selznick’s marketing

tactics, but mostly to America’s theater culture that existed at the time.

In 1939 – the year of

Gone with the Wind

’s release – forty-six percent of the

United States population attended movie theaters weekly. (Moul, 122) Because of

these moviegoing habits, marketing a film in the modern sense was not really

necessary during the period of time in which

Gone with the Wind

achieved so

much success. Even so, Selznick’s company Selznick International Pictures and

partner Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) still utilized an extensive (for the time)

marketing strategy.

While simple newspaper ads were common fare when marketing a film

during the time period, Selznick International and MGM created a nationwide

publicity stunt in which open casting calls for the starring role of Scarlett O’Hara

were planted in major newspapers. In a move that served to build buzz and early

word of mouth, thousands of women auditioned in cities across the United States,

in spite of actress Vivien Leigh already being cast as the character. (Shone, 28)

By the time of the premiere on December 15, 1939, at the Loew’s Grand

Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, hype for the film had reached soaring heights.

Georgia Governor Eurith Rivers declared that day a statewide holiday, and

festivals and balls occurred around the city. An estimated 300,000 Atlantans and

visitors lined the streets for up to seven miles to enjoy a parade that consisted of

the director and stars of the film heading to the theater for the premiere. (

TIME

1939)

The combination of the moviegoing culture and clever marketing tactics

yielded enormous and enduring success for the film. As of 2014,

Gone with the

Wind

has accumulated almost $200 million at the domestic box office, and when

adjusted for inflation, the film ranks as the highest grossing among all domestic

films with $1,640 million earned. While this number incorporates the revenues

generated from the countless theatrical rereleases of the film throughout the

decades following its initial release, the film was still the highest grossing film of

all time for over twenty years. (Box Office Mojo, C)

Gone with the Wind

is still not considered a true blockbuster despite

having many of the necessary credentials. By its unadjusted numbers – which is

the main tool that contemporary studios and analysts use – the film ranks at only

one hundred and fifty-two among all domestic releases. (Box Office Mojo, D)

However,

Gone with the Wind

is not the only film to be dethroned from

the top ten highest grossing films – and potential blockbuster status – because of

inflation and the lack of a complex multi-media marketing campaign. Walt

Disney’s

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

(1937), Paramount’s

The Ten

Commandments

(1956), 20

Century Fox’s

The Sound of Music

(1965), and Metro-

Goldwyn-Mayer’s

Doctor Zhivago

(1965) all rank in the top ten when domestic

grosses are adjusted for inflation, but disappear in unadjusted rankings.

It is also important to note at this point that the box office grosses of any

film released before 1980 are strictly well-informed estimates, but these numbers

are still considered industry standards. Also, many of the following films have

experienced various rereleases throughout the years; so final domestic numbers

may not match with the numbers discussed chronologically throughout the text,

which mostly focuses on the original box office totals of the first, original release

unless stated otherwise. (Box Office Mojo, B)

The unadjusted and adjusted top ten highest grossing films in the

domestic market are shown in Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1

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As seen with Figures 1 and 2, adjusting the box office totals yields dramatic

differences, with only three films appearing (in red) on both lists:

Star Wars:

Episode IV - a New Hope

(commonly referred to simply as

Star Wars

E.T.: The

Extra-Terrestrial

, and

Titanic

. Most interesting is the absence of

Jaws

from the

unadjusted list, which as the seminal blockbuster should theoretically be in the

top ten of both lists.

The films present in the adjusted list, which – aside from

Jaws

and

Titanic

– all represent a prototype of the modern blockbuster. These films had universal

appeal, ranging from historical epics –

The Ten Commandments

(1956)

and

Doctor Zhivago

(1965) – to films aimed at children –

Snow White and the Seven

Dwarfs

(1937) and

The Sound of Music

(1965) – to “event” films –

Gone with the

Wind

(1939) and

The Exorcist

(1973). These films were fervently enjoyed by the

masses, earning huge box office receipts, and in the case of

Snow White,

even

inspiring theme park attractions. Yet, only one of these films is singled out as the

seminal blockbuster: 1975’s Jaws.

Why does

Jaws

get the honor? The answer lies in the marketing.

B. THE ESSENTIALS OF FILM MARKETING

At this point, it is pivotal to note that the following overview of a typical

blockbuster’s marketing strategy and campaign tactics is the current norm, the

result of decades of blockbusters that have assisted in revolutionizing the

template. The chapters to follow will highlight the films, individuals, and studios

responsible for the current strategy.

With that said and before we take the plunge into what makes

Jaws

special, a basic understanding of film marketing as it is today must be acquired.

Although film marketing does originate from textbook marketing principles,

there are several elements unique to the motion picture industry. (Moul, 103)

At its core, the term film marketing applies to any tool or tactic used to

promote and generate awareness for a film among its target audience at any

point in its lifetime – from the prerelease and theatrical run to home video

release and rentals. To reach the proper audience, a strategy must be designed

that positions the film properly, captures audience attention, and utilizes the

marketing tools appropriate to the target. Usually, devising and executing a

marketing strategy for a film begins several months in advance of the opening

weekend to ensure successful and timely placement on the correct mediums.

(Durie, Pham, & Watson, 5-6)

At each stage of the film’s life cycle, marketing’s importance varies, with

most efforts focused on the months, weeks, and days preceding a film’s opening

weekend. Depending on the film’s initial box office performance, marketing can

continue in lessened forms (if successful) or cease altogether (if unsuccessful)

until the week or so preceding release on home video – which typically occurs

two to three months after the film’s theatrical run ends.

Over this period of a film’s lifetime, several different marketing tools are

employed. These marketing tools can be divided into four specific areas: research,

paid advertising, publicity, and promotion. (Jowett & Linton, 58)

RESEARCH

Before a marketing campaign can be put into effect and before most

creative pieces can be engineered and released to the public, market research

must be done. While research goes into the pre-production of films – before films

are even cast or shot – this section will concentrate on the research done that is

relevant to formulating the marketing strategy, which can be broken down into

four groups: test screenings, creative testing, tracking surveys, and exit surveys.

(Marich, 45)

Test screenings are the first steps in researching for the advertising

campaign, done before creative materials are even engineered. In this step,

distributors organize test screenings of an unfinished or finished film for random

or specifically selected volunteers to gauge audience reaction to specific elements

in the film and to the film overall. In this stage, the distributor can be made

aware of any areas of the film that need to be reedited, clarified, or even reshot if

time allows. This stage also reveals which elements of the film resonate the most

with viewers, which plays a key role in the next stage.

Creative screening is done once information is gathered from test

screenings. Through analyzing the audience information from the previous stage,

various creative materials – posters, movie trailers, etc. – are shown to focus

groups, whose reactions are tested to see which materials are most effective.

Those chosen will be utilized in the campaign. (Marich, 44-45)

Tracking surveys or analysis are also done before a film’s release. Through

third-party sources like Rentrak and Nielsen, a distributor can monitor the online

mentions of the upcoming film across social media, news outlets, and blogs.

Other companies can also reach out to select consumers firsthand through actual

surveys. This information can be deciphered in such a way, that opening weekend

box office numbers can even be estimated weeks before release, allowing the

distributor to increase marketing saturation to increase awareness, level out

saturation, or to prepare the studio for a potential failure. (Marich, 45)

The final research to be done comes in the form of exit surveys at select

locations during a film’s opening weekend. The exit surveys monitor consumer

satisfaction, which functions to uncover whether the distributor can expect

negative or positive word-of-mouth and which marketing tactics were most

effective. It also monitors the demographics of the film’s audience. With this

information, the studio can decide to continue marketing the film or to cut its

losses and focus on the next project. Because ninety percent of a film’s marketing

budget is generally spent before a film is even released, the remaining ten

percent can be saved and allocated to a different project in case of failure. (Young,

Gong, Van der Stede, Sandino, & Fei, 37)

10!

PAID ADVERTISING

The second marketing tool is paid advertisements. Paid advertisements

include any bought space or time on the major advertising mediums. The

traditional mediums include newspaper ads, radio spots, and theater signage –

which include one-sheets, door panels, and lobby cards. These generally feature

distinct imagery from the film, showcase the film’s star power, and incorporate a

clever tagline, much like a consumer brand and its slogan. (Marich, 9)

Movie trailers – named because they originally occurred at the end of a

feature film – are generally a less-than-two-minute overview and summary that

show the stars, story, and memorable scenes to generate interest for a film.

Trailers now precede a feature film at the theater, and since the advent of the

television, can be condensed into thirty-second to sixty-second commercial spots

to air on whichever network or during whatever program that most closely aligns

to the target audience. (Moul, 123-124) In the digital age, trailers can be shared

through social media, used as advertisements on high-traffic sites, act as the focal

point of a film’s website, and inhabit sites dedicated to video content, such as

YouTube. (Marich, 117)

Digital is also the only medium that actively encourages audience

interaction and facilitates viral marketing – or a creative piece that spreads

through culture in a unique, interesting, or exciting way. (Young et al, 37) Digital

generally demands five to twenty percent of a film’s marketing budget, skewing

lower or higher depending on the target demographic. (Marich, 118)

Outdoor signage – billboards and transit shelter signage – have also

become increasingly popular because of their wide exposure. However, television

11!

overwhelmingly remains the prime medium for most film marketing campaigns,

even since the advent of the Internet and popularity of mobile devices.

Figure 3

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According to a study done by Kantar Media in 2010 shown in Figure 3, film

studios and distributors dedicated a whopping seventy-three percent of their

respective advertising budgets to television advertisements, as seen in the figure

above. The simple reasoning behind this overt favoritism stems from television

potentially guaranteeing as wide an audience as possible when compared to other

meidums. (Marich, 83)

The advertising dollars poured into the five different types of television

identified reach over $2,610 million USD (Kantar), which is twenty-five percent of

the entire 2010 domestic box office revenues ($10,206 million USD). (Marich, 2011)

12!

Surprisingly, the next largest expenditure on advertising includes

newspapers at almost fifteen percent of the budget. However, the most baffling

result of this study shows the lack of funding on digital mediums and radio, with

the reason for the lack of digital funding being the unwieldy and fickle nature of

Internet users (Marich, 115) but more than likely the simple fact that digital

advertising is much cheaper due to the shareable nature of the web. Essentially, if

a film’s online content is creative and entertaining enough, the audience can do

the bulk of the campaigning for the distributor.

Overall, the total film advertising expenditures for 2010 reach a number

equivalent to thirty-five percent of all domestic box office grosses, which reduces

actual returns from the domestic box office to around $6,600 million. (Box Office

Mojo, G)

PUBLICITY

Publicity comes in as the third marketing tool and is generally seen as the

most cost-effective but most unpredictable. Publicity – also referred to as earned

media – is essentially free advertising because a movie release is considered

newsworthy, especially when the director, stars of the film or film concept are

popular and prominent. Publicity can include cast interviews on talk shows and

various news outlets, creative and extensive publicity stunts – like the one

described for

Gone with the Wind

– and heavy coverage of the respective film’s

elaborate red-carpet premiere. (Jowett & Linton, 58 - 59)

Publicity also includes coverage from professional critics, who often get

early looks into high-profile films at festivals, press screenings, and the film’s

world premiere that most often occurs before the public release.

13!

However, if research has indicated that a film may not be very good, the

filmmakers generally decide to restrict any critical reviews on the film until the

day of wide release.

Generally, the most publicity occurs in the few weeks before a film’s

release. (Marich, 211)

PROMOTION

Film promotion generally refers to movie tie-ins, product placement,

merchandising, and word-of-mouth. (Jowett & Linton 59) Essentially, movie tie-ins

include a partnership with companies in licensing and cross-marketing deals,

such as action figures from a superhero film included in children’s meals at a

fast-food restaurant. The reasoning behind this method lies in the benefits found

on both sides of the relationship. The company hopes to increase sales based on

the popularity of a film and the subsequent demand for the children’s toy, and

the film distributor (or whichever entity retains licensing rights) aims to

maximize awareness by associating itself with an established brand, like a fast

food restaurant. (Marich, 147)

Another tool used in film promotion involves product placement. With

product placement, brands will finance the production of a film to have one of its

products displayed prominently in or more scenes of the movie, hoping to market

to the millions of viewers that will potentially view the film. As one of the earliest

tools in film marketing, product placement can be traced as far back as the 1927

silent film

Wings

, which incorporated Hershey’s into a memorable scene.

Merchandising also falls into this category. Merchandising consists of a

film producing a line of merchandise to sell in partnership with a toy making

company, i.e. Hasbro or Mattel. Merchandise can include clothing, action figures,

14!

board games, video games, posters, soundtrack CDs, home video (both digital and

physical), and even video rentals (now largely defunct). Depending on the film,

merchandise (including the home video release) can generate a much greater

profit than actual box office receipts, and this success along with box office

revenue can result in a sequel to the film or even the beginnings of a true

blockbuster franchise.

Film promotion can also include contests and sweepstakes sponsored by

the distributor generally in partnership with a company or companies with

similar goals and values. Such contests and sweepstakes can include cash prizes, a

trip to the film’s worldwide premiere, or a meet-and-greet with the film’s cast.

(Marich, 151 – 152)

While word-of-mouth generally is most effective after a film’s initial

national release, distributors also aim to build buzz in the weeks preceding the

film’s release. Some particular methods employed include holding exclusive early

screenings for the target audience in select cities and inviting influential bloggers

and social media trendsetters to cover similar, “exclusive” screenings. If the film

resonates with these early audiences in a positive way, constructive word-of-

mouth can begin and spread at a grassroots level even before the film is released.

(Marich, 153)

The four areas of film marketing outlined above can occur in two ways.

Generally, a major studio can produce and distribute entirely on its own, so it also

exercises complete creative control over the marketing process.

While this is traditionally the most common method for marketing a film,

since rising costs beginning in the eighties there has been an increase in

partnerships for the filmmaking and marketing processes. In this way, costs are

reduced, and by spreading the expenses, liabilities also decrease. This method

15!

generally includes a production company creating a film and selling its rights to

a distributor to market and promote the film, which in turn deals with the

exhibitor.

The exhibitor is the theater and theater chains that will actually “exhibit”

or show a film on behalf of the distribution company or studio. The distributor

and exhibitor normally agree on a profit-sharing method and settle the release

window for the film being discussed, which normally depends on certain

conditions like satisfactory box office performance. (Young et al, 38)

While many independent films aim for just a few theaters for their

opening weekend (hoping to expand through demand stemming from positive

word-of-mouth), the blockbuster formula and the formula for many major

modern releases is to release a movie in as many theaters as possible, also called a

wide release. While the average theater count for the typical studio release in 2013

and 2014 was 2,886, contemporary blockbusters tend to hover around 3,000

screens.

Now that an understanding of the modern film marketing process has

been established, the major roles of

Jaws

Star Wars

and various other films in

influencing and developing today’s modern blockbuster strategy can be traced all

the way back from the seventies.

16!

CHAPTER II: THE EMERGENCE OF THE

BLOCKBUSTER ERA

Besides a few successful films – such as 1965’s

The Sound of Music

, which

dethroned

Gone with the Wind

as the highest grossing film to that point

–

Hollywood began struggling in the 1960s. The tried-and-true sprawling epics of

the previous decades –

Gone with the Wind

The Ten Commandments

– were no

longer automatic hits; 1963’s

Cleopatra

–

starring Elizabeth Taylor in the title role

– had the budget of a blockbuster ($200 million in today’s dollars) without

blockbuster box office receipts. In fact, the picture’s disastrous performance

almost bankrupted 20

Century Fox. (Smithee, 2001)

By 1971, national theater attendance levels had reached an all-time low, and

the subsequent low profits had many once-prosperous studios barely managing to

remain in business.

Many blame one culprit for the box office struggle that continued

throughout the sixties and into the early seventies: television. With the

combination of its relatively recent introduction into American households and

soaring popularity, television had emerged as a very real threat to the motion

picture industry. Consumers no longer had to leave the comfort of their own

homes to be entertained by famous performers, comedians and the like. (Shone,

30)

17!

However, where television emerged as major competition for movie

theaters nationwide, it would also become the film industry’s greatest ally. First,

though, it would take two films to break the box office slump that had settled

over Hollywood.

A. THE TRAILBLAZERS OF THE SEVENTIES

Just after reaching an unprecedented low in 1971, the box office would

begin a period of revitalization in 1972 with the release of Francis Ford Coppola’s

The Godfather

. (Shone, 30-31)

While an effective marketing campaign is the key ingredient in any film’s

release, the success underlying

The Godfather

actually comes from another

complex facet of film distribution, the previously discussed relationship with

exhibitors. (Biskind, 1998)

Before 1972, films generally opened in one theater or theater chain in a

single city, and remained playing in that location for several weeks. Eventually,

the film would slowly expand to theaters in other major American cities, and

after an even longer length of time, the films would find their ways onto the

screens of small-town America. This process was slow and cumbersome, but the

film could not expand until the original exhibitor gave it permission to do so,

especially when the film is high profile. (Biskind, 1998) Films of this nature could

expect to play for up to three months in one location before given wider

distribution. (Smithee, 2001)

However, Paramount and

The Godfather

rejected this antiquated method

and opened the film in five theaters in its opening week and an unprecedented

18!

316 theaters in its second. While the marketing tactics for the film were purely

traditional – Paramount relied heavily on newspaper ads – the release platform

coupled successfully with the positive word-of-mouth the film generated.

The

Godfather

became a sensation, grossing over $86 million by the end of its

domestic run. (Shone, 40) (This number does not take rereleases or modern

inflation into consideration.)

In the wake of the success of

The Godfather

, by 1973 – just two years after

box office attendance and receipts had reached a historical low – the movie

industry was poised to regain the prominence it once enjoyed because of another

box office success:

The Exorcist

While the marketing for the film was traditional and its release strategy

was not revolutionary, William Friedkin’s

The Exorcist

still played a pivotal role

in reviving the appeal of an “event” film. An event film is a film that generates

word-of-mouth and anticipation to the point that people not only feel compelled

to see it but also they see it multiple times and with multiple people. (Simpson,

85-86) Audience members feel very engaged with event films, and subsequently,

with one another in experiencing it together.

Thanks to attempts at banning the film in various communities across the

United States on the grounds of it being the “embodiment of evil”,

The Exorcist

found immense box office success, besting the records set the year before by

The

Godfather

. In this case, enormous amounts of publicity and shock value lead to

an ultimate domestic box office gross of over $89 million for the horror film.

(Pevere, 2003)

Because of the Italian mafia and a demon-possessed little girl named

Regan, America was ripe for the picking by 1975: year zero of the Blockbuster Era.

19!

i. JAWS: THE ORIGINAL BLOCKBUSTER

Before the summer of 1975, Steven Spielberg was nowhere near being the

household name that he is today, but as

Jaws

can attest, it was only a matter of

time of time before he changed the film industry forever. (Smithee, 2001)

Given Spielberg’s lack of experience (he had only directed one feature film

the year before called

The Sugarland Express

starring Goldie Hawn),

Jaws

’ status

as the seminal blockbuster that ushered in the Blockbuster Era (Ferrara &

Lumeau, 118) of Hollywood is astonishing. The film’s production was riddled with

issues, ranging from a budget that had increased to $12 million (a bloated three-

hundred percent over what Universal Studios had initially allotted) to a shooting

period that extended from an initial fifty-five to an eventual one-hundred-and-

fifty-nine days. The film also experienced extensive technical difficulties with the

infamous mechanical shark that plagued production. In fact, the crew on the film

jokingly referred to

Jaws

as “Flaws” throughout the making of the film. Despite so

much being against the success of the film,

Jaws

still emerged victorious and

claimed its crown as the quintessential blockbuster that it maintains to this day.

But, why

Jaws

? (Smithee, 2001)

On the surface, the film does not seem to be very different from

The

Godfather

and

The Exorcist

before it. All three come from a best-selling novel as

source material and had modest budgets – the $12 million production budget and

$4 million marketing campaign would be around $40 million in today’s dollars.

(Smithee, 2001) An expense that is small compared to the data released by the

MPAA in 2006 (the final year that such information was released), which revealed

that the average cost of producing and marketing the average studio film reached

20!

over $100 million. Since then, it can be assumed that the expense has reached

even higher. (Verrier, 2009)

Furthermore,

Jaws

does not even have the status as being the first event

film of the seventies – that belongs to

The Exorcist

However, while

The Godfather

and

The Exorcist

both initially peaked

under $90 million in box office receipts in their original runs,

Jaws

ended its

initial domestic run with an estimated $124 million unadjusted gross. In spite of a

production riddled with difficulty,

Jaws

managed to best its predecessors by over

$30 million. Its breakout success actually begins two years before its release, and

is directly intertwined with a revolutionary marketing strategy. (Shone, 43)

In 1973, Universal began an intricate two-year marketing campaign for the

eventual release of the film by announcing that producers Richard Zanuck and

David Brown had acquired the rights to Peter Benchley’s novel “A Stillness in the

Water”. From there, Universal routinely kept the press and those interested up to

date with all major developments. When the film went into production, Universal

had hundreds of members of the press sent to the filming destination, where over

two hundred interviews with the cast (which included Richard Dreyfuss in the

starring role) crew, and director were completed. (Jowett & Linton, 60)

Universal also coordinated a release of the paperback version of the novel

– with the unmistakable

Jaws

imagery emblazoned on its cover – a full six

months before the film’s release, (Jowett & Linton, 61) which is the first time such

a synergistic relationship had been created between source material and film.

Perhaps most intriguing was the studio’s decision to release the film at the

height of the summer. Before

Jaws,

the summer months were seen as the slowest

time of the year in the motion picture industry. Essentially, these were “dead

months”, but the June 20 release would come to expose the full potential

21!

audience that could be found during this period, consisting of idling teenagers

and those who just wished to escape the summer heat. (Smithee, 2001)

But the most pivotal choice that Universal made regarded utilizing the

film industry’s biggest enemy: television. In a stroke of unprecedented genius,

Universal allocated almost $700,000 on a three-day television advertising

campaign – complete with an almost universally recognizable score by composer

John Williams – preceding the national release date. All of the major networks

were saturated with thirty-second previews of the film during primetime hours

(Smithee, 2001), with over 211 million American households potentially exposed.

(Jowett & Linton, 59) Never before had a studio or distributor orchestrated a

television campaign, but Universal had an even greater plan.

While

The Godfather

had extinguished the exhibitor exclusivity deal three

years prior, that particular film still did not release nationwide on its opening

weekend.

Jaws

became the first film to do so.

Originally scheduled to open at almost 900 theaters in its first weekend,

(Shone, 26) Universal eventually settled on a still groundbreaking 464 theaters for

the opening weekend, after test screenings in Dallas, Texas, and Long Beach,

California, revealed that enthusiastic word of mouth would build the demand

they desired to expand. The film broke box office records, earning over $7 million

during its opening weekend. By its third weekend,

Jaws

had expanded to 954

theaters. (Jowett & Linton, 59)

Never before had a film coordinated a television campaign with a wide

release, and because of Jaws, the benefits of this synergy became obvious to all of

Hollywood. Today, advertising on television is the main component of any film

marketing campaign and is critical in building the awareness that leads to such

large profits.

22!

On top of the revolutionary release strategy and prerelease marketing

campaign, Universal also devised a limited array of promotional merchandise.

Jaws

merchandise began with the release of the source novel that included

reworked cover art featuring the film’s poster. After the film’s release, Universal

produced and distributed t-shirts, posters and beach towels to support the film

and to generate more profits from enthusiastic fans. While the official

merchandising was sparse compared to blockbusters today,

Jaws

was still the first

film to capitalize on its popularity in this way. The film also gave rise to another

phenomenon unanticipated by Universal. (Shone, 35–36)

With the massive unprecedented success of the film came audience and

fan participation unseen before. While

The Exorcist

was the first event film of the

seventies,

Jaws

easily surpassed its predecessor in inciting audience reactions.

United by a fear and loathing of the deadly shark, moviegoers found themselves

bonding with one another, gasping, yelling, laughing, and applauding in unison

at screens across the nation. Seeing

Jaws

became a social event, an event that

friends and families wanted to experience again and again. These repeat viewings

that were so groundbreaking in

Jaws

are now an aspiration for today’s

blockbusters and a benchmark used to measure the true success of a film in this

genre.

With such an enthusiastic fan base,

Jaws

merchandise quickly spread

beyond the official products licensed by Universal. All across the nation, shark-

centric consumer goods, events, and locations sprang up, feeding off and fueling

what came to be described as “

Jaws

mania.” (Shone, 37)

Jaws

had transcended from film to event to brand, thus giving rise to the

idea that a film is a brand in the same way that Ford, Versace, and McDonald’s

are.

Jaws

imagery (the shark swimming up to its first victim, swimmer Christy)

23!

had just as much an effect as other brand symbols outside of the motion picture

industry. (Shone, 38)

After eleven weeks and at the height of “

Jaws

mania”, the film had out-

grossed both

The Godfather

and

The Exorcist

and had become the first film to

make over $100 million. (Smithee, 2001) As of 2015, the film has earned an

estimated $260 and $471 million domestically and globally, respectively.

The first blockbuster franchise was attempted in the wake of its triumph,

with three much less successful sequels following in 1978, 1983, and 1987.

Despite its failure to launch the first full-fledged blockbuster franchise,

Jaws

had still almost singlehandedly ushered in a new era of cinema as other

studios sought to replicate its wild success. For the first time, studios began

scrambling to fill the summers with bombastic, high-concept films with event-

potential almost all aimed at teenage and young adult audiences. Today, the

films released between Memorial and Labor Days account for over forty-percent

of annual domestic box office revenue, and it all started with

Jaws.

(Smithee, 2001)

But, while

Jaws

is hailed as the first true blockbuster of a revolutionary

new era in American cinema, the film cannot be given the sole credit of defining

the modern blockbuster. American cinema is a continually evolving industry, and

just as

Jaws

was the product of several blockbuster prototypes before it, the film

spawned generations of films that continuously changed the blockbuster strategy.

The journey into the modern blockbuster takes us from the mysterious

and deadly depths of the sea and into the vastness of a galaxy far, far away.

24!

ii. STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A NEW HOPE

While Steven Spielberg was relatively unknown to the American masses

before the release of

Jaws

in 1975, his contemporary George Lucas was a different

story.

George Lucas became a familiar name to American audiences after the

success of his 1973 film

American Graffiti

(Ferrara & Lumeau, 116), which was the

third highest grossing film of that year. Four years later and just two years after

the release of

Jaws

, he would join Spielberg as a fellow father of the blockbuster.

Where Spielberg’s

Jaws

was the cinematic pioneer, Lucas’

Star Wars:

Episode IV – A New Hope

(commonly referred to as simply

Star Wars

for many

years)

was the brave soul to immediately follow, further clearing the trail into the

farthest reaches of the blockbuster frontier.

Unlike

Jaws

before it, the first

Star Wars

did not necessarily utilize a

systematic approach to its marketing strategy. When 20

Century Fox only

provided t-shirts and posters for marketing materials, Lucas’ production company

Lucasfilm hired Charles Lippencott as the marketing director.

Star Wars

did not have the luxury of being something familiar to the

masses, so the marketing was pivotal in creating awareness. Since there was no

previous source material to draw from, such as a best-selling novel or play that

the film was adapted from, Lippencott and Lucas looked to the comic book

community in a brilliant marketing move. Partnering with Marvel Comics, San

Diego Comic-Con, and Del Rey Books, various creative materials were published

to precede and coincide with the film’s release, including a comic book series that

is still currently in publication.

25!

Not only did this help set the stage for the intergalactic drama to unfold,

but also this generated a further interest in the key demographic – teenage boys

and young men, who would find a science fiction epic appealing. In the decades

to follow, the kind of fan-base marketing employed here would continue to

influence science fiction and fantasy based blockbusters. (Elsaesser, 16-17)

But the real force in Lucas’

Star Wars

came in two areas: the technology

and the merchandising.

After the success of

American Graffiti

(for which Lucas earned around $7

million), he invested his time and money in a special-effects company called

Industrial Light & Magic, founded in 1975, to create the visuals needed for his

space drama. It was the first facility of its kind, just as

Star Wars

would be the first

film to utilize this level of advanced technology.

Through Industrial Light & Magic, Lucas was able to go beyond previous

filmmaking efforts to created something akin to the animated classics of Disney

but on a much more realistic level. The special effects used in the film set the

tone for blockbusters to come, with gorgeous visuals, sweeping sound, and eye-

popping scenes, and the blood-pumping action sequences now a staple of the

genre.

The legacy of this company continues to this day, contributing special

effects to over 300 feature films and ten of the top fifteen highest grossing films

of all time, including

Titanic

, the

Harry Potter

and

Pirates of the Caribbean

franchises,

Avatar

, and the extensive Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Industrial

Light & Magic)

While

Star Wars

is credited for whetting audience appetites for special

effects, it is also considered the first film to realize the full potential of

26!

merchandising and franchising and is arguably the first time a movie truly

became a brand.

Before 1977, no one in the industry expected that film merchandise would

be as lucrative as it would eventually become. To reinforce the collective

obliviousness of the film industry, 20

Century Fox offered Lucas $100,000 and

forty-percent of the profits, expecting heavy negotiations to follow as those

numbers were relatively low. However, Lucas agreed to the terms but on the

condition that he keep sole ownership of the merchandising, licensing, and

franchising rights for the film and its potential sequels. (Shone, 66) Fox eagerly

obliged, and in the end, the difference would number in the billions. (Block, 2012)

Filmed for just $11 million (not adjusted for inflation), the success of

Star

Wars

was unexpected. On May, 25, 1977, the film was released in just 43 theaters,

but because of the earlier marketing efforts,

Star Wars

had quickly created a

passionate fan base that spread positive word of mouth and saw the film multiple

times. Demand was so great that 20

Century Fox was forced to quickly broaden

the release.

In a mere three months following its release, the film was already playing

in over 3,000 theaters and had already surpassed $100 million at the domestic box

office. By the end of the year, the film had grossed almost $194 million. (Shone,

65) Ultimately,

Star Wars

overcame

Jaws

’ two-year reign to become the highest

grossing film of all time for a number of years. At the end of its initial box office

run, the film had earned over $307 million domestically.

While the box office receipts were very impressive, the film merchandise

further cemented its status as a cultural phenomenon and blockbuster

powerhouse. Featuring a diverse and memorable cast of characters that included

humans Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo, aliens Master Yoda,

27!

Chewbacca, and Jabba the Hutt, and robots C3PO and R2D2) the merchandising

potential was immense. The revenues exceeded expectations.

Because no one expected the films’ wild success, before the film’s release

Lucas had struck a deal with toymaker Kenner to produce a modest number of

action figures based on the various characters featured in the film for a flat fee of

$100,000. However, by the time that the Christmas of 1977 approached, Kenner

was inundated with a demand so high that it was forced to sell an “Early Bird

Certificate Package” – an I.O.U. that could be redeemed later when supply could

sufficiently meet demand. By the end of the following year, Kenner had sold

more than 40 million of the figures for revenues exceeding $100 million, almost a

third of the total box office of the first film. (Block, 2012)

However, the merchandise does not stop at action figures. Everything from

lunch boxes and toy light sabers to Halloween costumes were produced. By

August 25, 1977, a novelization of the film published through Del Rey Books had

already sold over two million copies. Eventually, the franchise would grow to

include theme park rides and attractions at Disney amusement parks across the

world – blockbusters

Jaws

Indiana Jones

Jurassic Park

, and

Harry Potter

would

follow suit.

The film’s soundtrack, which was also scored by

Jaws

composer John

Williams, would also come to sell two million copies by 1978. (Shone, 66)

By Thanksgiving 1978,

Star Wars

had even expanded into television, with

the

Star Wars Holiday Special

airing on CBS. Not only did the special feature the

original cast and a fresh storyline, but also it introduced villain Boba Fett who

would not come into play until the prequel trilogy in 1999.

With such unprecedented success, it was easy to see why George Lucas and

Lucasfilm greenlit the production of two sequels to follow in 1980 and 1983. Thus,

28!

a franchise was born, and the Blockbuster Era was poised to explode full force

into the American cinematic consciousness, eventually conquering the world.

B. AFTERMATH:

THE EIGHTIES THROUGH THE NINETIES

In the wake of the

Jaws

and

Star Wars

phenomena, the major Hollywood

studios began rushing to reproduce the breakout success of both films. Looking

to those two bastions as guidance, a general blockbuster formula began to

develop, with

Jaws’

saturated opening weekend technique – simultaneously

opening in every market of the country and running a mass television advertising

campaign – (Neale & Smith, 59) and

Star Wars

’ licensing and merchandising

opportunities (Prince, 139) both rising to the forefront.

At the dawn of the eighties,

Star Wars

’ impact seemed to be the most

visible, as its successful licensing and merchandising ventures both lead to the

creation of the

Star Wars

franchise, the first ever blockbuster franchise.

However, throughout the eighties and nineties, the film industry was not

the only market undergoing enormous change.

By the mid-eighties television began to emerge as a major player in new

ways, as pay-for-television subscription services, such as HBO, began to grow

rapidly. (Prince, 26) Coupled with the exponential growth of home video

technology and sales (Neale & Smith, 35) and a period of inflation that led to

increasing production and advertising costs (Prince, 21), the film industry was

confronted with the sudden development of various ancillary markets, effectively

transforming filmmaking and its marketing tactics (Prince, 132).

29!

In order to fully delve into the Blockbuster Era of the eighties and nineties,

two separate threads must be created: examining the development of the early

blockbuster franchises and observing the rise of the ancillary markets.

i. THE BLOCKBUSTER FRANCHISE

By 1980, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were household names, with

both accredited with the meteoric rise of the blockbuster.

While Spielberg’s

Jaws

is commonly referred to as the first blockbuster,

Lucas would be the one responsible for launching the first blockbuster franchise

with 1980’s successful sequel release:

Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes

Back

Before

Empire

’s release, Hollywood’s foray into sequels generally dealt

with a mere duplication of the original’s formula, with minor tweaks here and

there to give the illusion of a new product. With

Empire

, though, Hollywood

realized that a high-concept, compelling narrative could be sold effectively across

multiple films.

A third, profitable film would follow in 1983,

Star Wars: Episode VI – The

Return of the Jedi

, which, when combined with

Empire

, would go on to generate

more than $1 billion in box office grosses and over $3 billion in merchandising in

the same period. (Ferrara & LaMeau, 118)

Along with the

Star Wars

film franchise, an entire

Star Wars

universe

came into existence, mostly centered on the aforementioned merchandising.

Star

Wars

branched out into video games, novels and even live-action television

30!

specials and a contemporary animated television series on Cartoon Network.

(Block, 2012)

The moral of this story is that when a film sells, its success can transcend

beyond the theatrical market. In fact, since the release of three more films in

1999, 2002, and 2005, the six films in total have earned a collective $4 billion in

box office receipts since 1977 – over a period of almost forty years. (Ferrara &

LaMeau, 118) Juxtapose this number with the $3 billion the franchise generated in

merchandising and licensing grosses in the year 2011 alone. (Block, 2012)

While the appeal of merchandising and franchising now may seem

obvious, the true potential was not seen so clearly at the time.

Even so, the release of Lucas’

Empire

in 1980 ushered in an entire wave of

franchises, with some being more successful than others based on their

marketing appeal.

Because of the odd, memorable array of characters in the

Star Wars

franchise, the 1980s saw a rapid increase in the production and release of films

and emerging franchises based on cartoons, robots, aliens, and superheroes –

essentially anything with a distinct style that could be translated into a unique

marketing campaign. In other words, if the main characters could easily become

a toy, studios would fervently pursue a project. (Prince, 139)

The first five years of the eighties saw consecutive years of record-breaking

box office receipts, with domestic grosses rising from $2 billion in 1980 to over $4

billion by 1984. (Prince, 1) Many of the films released during this time period

would go on to launch successful franchises in the vein of

Star Wars

1981 saw the release of Steven Spielberg’s

Raiders of the Lost Ark

– based

on characters and story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman – which became the

highest-grossing release from that year, grossing over $200 million, and later

31!

leading into the

Indiana Jones

franchise. The original film inspired three more

films (released in 1984, 1989, and 2008), an early nineties television show, and

numerous video games. (Box Office Mojo, F)

Before the 1984 release of

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

, the

second film in the franchise, Paramount chose to include a trailer for

Doom

with

the home video release of

Raiders

. Further capitalizing on the clout of the

original film, all marketing materials announcing the home release of

Raiders

included a tie-in with

Doom

. (Prince, 133)

Doom

went on to be the third highest

grossing film of 1984, the same year in which four films grossed over $100 million

with two of the films grossing over $200 million – the first time this had ever

occurred.

Among those films was

Beverly Hills Cop

starring Eddie Murphy (the

highest grossing of the year and the beginning of another film franchise),

supernatural comedy

Ghostbusters

, and the highly marketable

Gremlins

. (Shone,

150)

Following the massive overall success of Steven Spielberg’s

E.T.: The Extra-

Terrestrial

in 1982 which, with a domestic gross of almost $360 million, became

the global highest grossing film of all time until 1993’s

Jurassic Park

Gremlins

–

also associated with Spielberg – sought to tap into the same marketing vein

uncovered by

E.T.

, the titular alien adorably feasts on Reese’s Pieces in a memorable

scene, which subsequently led to the products’ sales shooting sixty-five percent

following the initial release of the film on over 1,000 screens. (Shone, 133) This

uncovered the fact that a children’s film can also be highly influential in the

advertising world and revived an interest in product placement.

32!

Thus, two years later and with Spielberg’s name attached, Warner Bros.

secured fifty manufacturers to feature Gizmo – a loveable creature from

Gremlins

– and the other nefarious “gremlins” on their merchandise before the

film’s release. When the film ultimately only grossed half of what

E.T.

achieved,

Warner Bros. still benefited as the corporation took the cash in advance. (Prince,

137) Even so,

Gremlins

was still the fourth highest grossing film of 1984. (Box

Office Mojo, G)

The underwhelming performance of

Gremlins

did not damage Spielberg’s

good name. Inspired by the deals made regarding

Gremlins

, Spielberg and

Universal Pictures managed to secure enormous advertising and merchandising

for his 1993 hit

Jurassic Park

months before a single frame of the film was even

seen.

With a pre-production phase that lasted over two years (a similar

timeframe for Spielberg’s

Jaws

almost twenty years earlier), Universal Studios

managed to accumulate one hundred licensees to market over one-thousand

dinosaur products for the film. Among the most notable deals included toymaker

Kenner investing up to $8 million, videogame company Sega promising $7

million, and McDonald’s investing $12 million. This represented the trifecta of

film merchandising – toys, videogames, and cross-promotional tie-ins with an

established franchise – valued at $27 million alone. This number does not include

the other ninety-seven companies making similar deals. (Shone, 219) Overall, the

one hundred licensees spent an estimated $65 million on advertising during the

first weeks of release. (Millman, 1993)

Spawning two sequels in 1997 and 2001 – with a third on the way in the

summer of 2015 –

Jurassic Park

would go on to become the global highest

grossing film of all-time globally with over $900 million, but despite its

33!

enormous marketing campaign, the film still did not best

E.T.

’s domestic gross

from almost ten years earlier. In fact, 1993 became the first year in which global

box office receipts surpassed domestic totals. (Shone, 224-227)

Starting with the record-breaking summer of 1984, the major studios began

to slowly fall into a pattern that would persist throughout the nineties and

became a major element of the contemporary film period. Big-budget, high-

grossing films were no longer just an isolated event but an expected facet of the

industry. These films became known as “tent pole” films because their

performances kept the studios profitable and secured funds for smaller films to

be made. (Neale & Smith, 78)

Oftentimes, these films were focused on a proven franchise, such as

Indiana Jones

; a film with franchise potential, such as the following year’s highest

grosser

Back to the Future

, which spawned two sequels; or a film with major stars,

such as Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in

Rain Man

, or a well-known name in

general attached, such as producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer (the

duo behind hits like

Beverly Hills Cop

and

Top Gun

). (Prince, 208)

Many of these films contained certain plot elements that would come to

define the movies in the genre. Often, these pictures dealt with highly dramatized

concepts (space, the apocalypse, major wars) and featured young male heroes as

the central protagonist. These males – along with a cast of characters usually

based on archetypes from Western literature and mythology – faced unreal

circumstances, almost always a matter of life or death. While these films were

based on real historical events or stories that have withstood the test of time,

many blockbusters also mixed in elements of fantasy and science fiction and a

plethora of special effects and spectacle, leading to ever-growing budgets.

(Elsaesser, 16-17)

34!

The industry relied on these tent-pole films to such an extent that by 1989

(the highest grossing year since 1984) (Shone, 197) a single, major box office

failure could have major repercussions for an entire studio.

For example, when Warner Bros. released Tim Burton’s

Batman

that same

year, the studio’s return-on-investment was forty-one percent. However, had

Batman

not been produced, the return-on-investment would have only been

twenty-five percent, which is almost fifty-percent lower. In a more extreme case,

Paramount’s return-on-investment in 1997 was thirty-nine percent thanks to James

Cameron’s

Titanic

– which bested

Jurassic Park

in becoming the first billion

dollar blockbuster; without

Titanic

, Paramount’s return-on-investment would

have been dangerously low at just three-percent. (Sedgwick & Pokorny, 291)

Also, while 1989’s

Batman

opened on 2,194 screens and had an opening

weekend domestic gross over $40 million – the highest at the time – the film

signaled more than the arrival of the comic book hero into the blockbuster world.

(Prince, 90) While

Batman

opened strongly, the film also became the first

blockbuster to fizzle out quickly. Of its $250 million ultimate domestic gross,

Batman

grossed almost half of that in its first ten days, showing that it was

incredibly front-loaded. (Shone, 197)

Although

Tim Burton’s

Batman

would go on to become the highest

grossing film in 1989, launching a lucrative franchise that would grow to include

a separate film series in the new millennium and a planned reboot, (Box Office

Mojo, F) the film signaled a disturbing trend in which blockbusters no longer

enjoyed the longevity they once did, with the opening weekend becoming crucial

to a blockbuster’s overall box office success.

By 1996, it was even more evident that the blockbuster formula was in

danger, on a large scale. During its first week in release,

Independence Day

35!

grossed a record-breaking $100 million, but only managed to eclipse $300 million

over its entire domestic run. While these numbers are still impressive,

Independence Day

should have grossed more considering it was the first film to

advertise at the Super Bowl – the most watched event annual event on American

television –and that over $100 million combined was spent on advertising and

production. (Shone, 239) The film would not have been as successful had it not

been for its global performance, which brought total box office grosses to over

$800 million. (Box Office Mojo, H)

With so much at stake, the studios had to turn to other areas for financial

security, with supplementary markets developing even in the early eighties.

Calling all ancillary markets, stage left.

ii. THE RISE OF THE ANCILLARY MARKETS

By 1980, motion pictures were making more money than anyone could

have fathomed just ten years prior. (Prince, 19) However, other markets were

simultaneously developing and evolving, with the potential to further heighten

the newfound prosperity and provide safety for the risky film industry. (Prince,

139) Ultimately, these ancillary markets would go on to influence the creation

and content of blockbusters permanently. (Neale & Smith, 12)

At the beginning of the decade and in the wake of the revitalization of the

American film industry in the seventies, the three major ancillary markets – or

markets outside of the domestic box office that could help guarantee a film’s

financial success and studio solvency – were already beginning to emerge: home

video, pay-for-television subscription services, and the global film market. (Neale

36!

& Smith, 35) By the end of the nineties, each would hold a major influence on the

industry.

At the dawn of the eighties, film had already begun to move out of the

limits of the theater and into homes on televisions across the nation. Of these

formats, the popularization of the videotape and deals with pay-for-television

services allowed studios to pursue profits beyond the box office. (Prince, 3)

During the historical waning of the film industry in the mid to late sixties,

only one in ten films generated enough box office receipts to actually be

considered profitable. By 1985, thanks to the creation of the blockbuster formula

and the three secondary markets, over half of all films released turned a profit.

(Neale & Smith, 37)

The most rapidly growing of these three, that would in turn help shape the

nineties and early twenty-first century, was the home video market.

By mid-decade, films were generally released on home video six months

after leaving the theater. Marketing and advertisements would go into effect

roughly a week or so before this release, ensuring resurgence in awareness.

(Prince, 91)

The marketing worked, and as the VCR took hold of American

households, sales began to boom.

In 1981, the sales of prerecorded videocassettes stood around four million

in total. By 1989, sales had reached almost 208 million units – a 5,200 percent

increase in just eight years. (Prince, 95) Sales of VCRs rose from two million units

in 1980 to sixty-two million in 1990. (Neale & Smith, 35)

Home video revenues would surpass box office grosses by mid-decade. In

1989, the domestic box office grosses had finally surpassed $5 billion for the first

time, yet home video sales and rentals bested that number twice over. (Neale &

37!

Smith, 58) The major studios began to realize the potential here – especially

regarding the blockbuster, the juggernaut of the industry.

In 1983, Paramount’s

Flashdance

– that year’s third highest grossing film

behind

Star Wars: Episode XI – The Return of the Jedi

and

Terms of Endearment

(Box Office Mojo, G) – was actually a forerunner in experimental, modern

releases. With waning theatrical grosses, Paramount decided to announce the

release of the film on home video while it was still running in many theaters. The

result was a fourteen percent increase in box office grosses, which revealed to

studios that one film could promote itself through a simultaneous presence in

different markets.

As mentioned earlier, in 1984 Paramount promoted its second

Indiana

Jones

installment,

Temple of Doom

, by featuring a trailer for it with the home

video release of the seminal film in the series,

Raiders of the Lost Ark

. (Prince,

133) By 1987, total video sales of

Raiders

had surpassed 1.5 million units. (Prince,

104)

The 1987 home video release of

Top Gun

– the biggest grosser of 1986

(Box Office Mojo, G) – was the first blockbuster videocassette to carry a

commercial sponsorship. An advertisement for Diet Pepsi preceded the film,

produced with similar imagery from

Top Gun

in an attempt to create a

connection between the two. In its first two weeks of release, over 2.5 million

videocassettes were sold generating revenues that equaled half of its entire

lifetime at the domestic box office – also exposing the Diet Pepsi ad to those

same, numerous consumers. (Prince, 105)

1983’s

E.T.

– the highest grossing domestic blockbuster until 1997’s

Titanic

– also saw extraordinary home video sales when it was finally released in 1987. By

year’s end, the film had sold over 15 million copies, generating Universal

38!

revenues totaling $175 million – almost half of its historic domestic total. The

blockbuster suddenly became even more appealing. (Prince, 107)

By 1996, the effects of marketing films for home release could easily be

seen. Disney’s 1994 animated blockbuster

The Lion King

earned over $25o million

at the domestic box office, but in two years the film had exceeded $1.5 billion in

home video revenues – the blockbuster officially became an entire industry in

itself. (Moul, 163)

While home video was experiencing an enormous surge in popularity, pay-

for-cable subscriptions were experiencing a similar albeit slighter surge.

By 1983, HBO – the leading service provider in this category – had risen to

become a major player in the worlds of both film and television. It, along with

other similar services, had reached new heights by this year, with $2.4 billion

revenues in this industry by this time, compared to $3.4 billion domestic box

office revenues in 1982. (Prince, 26)

These services often dealt with the major studios through deals to show

studio films on television, a relationship that would eventually outshine the

previous relationships studios had with the traditional cable networks. Eventually,

HBO would partner with other production companies to finance its own original

films, setting a precedent for the later rise of Netflix and becoming a minor

threat in its own right.

Between 1980 and 1990, pay-for-cable subscribers had increased almost five

times over, from 9 million to 42 million. (Neale & Smith, 35) In 1980, the film

industry earned $240 million in revenues from pay cable, but by 1990 that

number had increased to $1,100 million – surpassing the grosses of network and

syndicated television combined. (Prince, 92) HBO and other services were

39!

expending enormous sums of money to showcase a feature film for the first time

on television, with blockbusters rising to the forefront.

While pay-for-cable was the largest cash generator, the traditional

television formats also helped play a role in the formation of modern blockbuster

practices. 1983’s

Flashdance

experimented with more than home video releases. In

an exclusive deal with MTV, Paramount executed a revolutionary and successful

cross-promotional campaign with its film

Flashdance

. (Prince, 133)

Since MTV focused on pop culture, its relationship with

Flashdance

was

very natural, as the film featured a soundtrack packed with pop music hits. Before

and during the first weeks of the film’s release, MTV had exclusive access to four

music videos for the four most popular songs from the soundtrack, with the

videos heavily utilizing footage from the film. (Prince, 133)

Of those, Irene Cara’s “Flashdance… What a Feeling” and Michael

Sembello’s “Maniac” would both top the United States music charts. (Billboard,

1983) In just twenty-four days, the soundtrack album was certified platinum,

selling over one million copies. (Prince, 133) By year’s end, the soundtrack would

sell over five million copies. (Prince, 208)

Through lucrative deals with these television services, which all wanted a

piece of successful theatrical films to help round out their own individual

content, studios had yet another way to make money from the blockbuster.

Even though pay-for-cable continues to be a major ancillary market in

contemporary times, the only market of the three to prevail and actually emerge

as the single most powerful market – even eclipsing the domestic market – is the

global box office.

40!

While the global box office had been a presence for some number of years,

the true potential of this market would not be seen until the early nineties. (Neale

& Smith, 35)

When compared to the other major ancillary markets, global cinema

increased at a much slower rate. Between 1980 and 1990, global box office

revenues increased just twenty-five percent from $911 to $1,2oo million. (Prince,

92)

After 1990, markets in Asia and Eastern Europe began to fully embrace the

American film industry. (Neale & Smith, 35) By 1992 the entertainment industry

became the United States’ largest export behind aerospace technology. (Shone,

227) The profits quickly followed suit.

In just a few years, the power of the global film market would be obvious.

1993’s

Jurassic Park

became the worldwide highest grossing of all time to that

point with almost $900 million, yet 1982’s

E.T.

remained the number one

champion domestically by over $40 million (though this number includes a re-

release in 1985). (Box Office Mojo, D) In ten years, the market had evolved so

much that a film could be the number one record-setter globally without being

number one stateside. 1993 would also mark the first time that Hollywood’s

overseas revenues surpassed domestic totals, in a trend that continues to this day.

(Shone, 227)

1996’s

Independence Day

would also cement the increased power of the

global box office, as that film made a little over $300 million stateside, but $500

million in all other markets – bringing its global total to over $800 million,

making it the highest grossing of the year. (Box Office Mojo, H)

Director James Cameron’s 1997 hit

Titanic

would prove to reap the largest

benefits from the global box office, and from another ancillary market as well.

41!

With a budget of around $200 million, (Shone, 261)

Titanic

had the

makings of a monstrous hit or miss for 2oth Century Fox and Paramount, who

jointly funded the project. One of the wisest moves from the filmmakers involved

the allocation of funds to the music of the film. With a score composed by James

Horner (who had previous experience with scoring blockbusters like 1995’s

Apollo

), the soundtrack was already well on its way to success and an eventual

Academy Award. Horner also secured popular artist Celine Dione to sing the

film’s key song “My Heart Will Go On”. Like Horner, Dione had previous

experience lending her voice to blockbuster film soundtracks, such as 1992’s

Beauty and the Beast

. (Sandler & Studlar, 50-51)

The result of the combination of Horner’s affecting score and Dione’s

powerhouse vocals was a pop culture phenomenon. Horner’s soundtrack score,

which was completely instrumental save for Dione’s song, ended up selling over

10 million copies in the United States alone, an achievement rarely reached by

normal artists in contemporary times. (Sandler & Studlar, 47) Considering the

soundtrack only cost $1 million to produce, this is an enormous return-on-

investment.

“My Heart Will Go On” went on to become the biggest hit of Dione’s

career and one of the best selling singles of all time, with over 15 million copies

sold worldwide. (Goldman & Blakely, 2007) The song also ranked number one on

the United States Billboard Year-End charts in 1998. (Billboard, 1998)

Because of the enormous popularity of the music, good word-of-mouth,

and savvy marketing that promoted stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet

and the historical relevance of the film,

Titanic

exceeded all expectations and

grossed a record-shattering $601 million domestically in its original run. The film

would go on to gross double that number in global markets, with over $1,242

42!

million. Ultimately, by the end of 1998, the film grossed over $1,843 million

worldwide. It was the first time a film had ever grossed over a billion dollars, and

the first time that worldwide numbers outpaced domestic grosses to such an

extent. (Sandler & Studlar, 55)

With the global market becoming such a major player, the content of

blockbusters began to evolve to appeal to a more diverse audience, though the

exact effects would not be seen until the second phase of the Blockbuster Era,

which, once again, begins with a familiar name: George Lucas.

43!

CHAPTER III: THE BLOCKBUSTER ERA: PART II –

A NEW CENTURY

The heyday of the blockbuster franchise had been steadily waning in the

ten years following its peak in 1989. That year, sequels to major film franchises

Indiana Jones

Lethal Weapon, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future

Stark Trek

, and

The Karate Kid

all found their ways onto the big screen for the biggest summer

at that point in American film history. (Shone, 196)

With the exceptions of the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher

Batman

film

franchise that kicked off in ’89 (with more films released in ‘92, ‘95, and ‘97); 1990’s

Home Alone

and its sequel in 1992 (the first and second highest grossing films in

their respective years); two releases in Disney’s

Toy Story

film series in 1995 and

1997 (a third would go on to break records in 2010); entries in the James Bond film

franchise starring Pierce Brosnan in 1995, 1997, and 1999 (with another eventually

released in 2002); and Steven Spielberg’s

Jurassic Park

(which spawned a sequel in

1997, with one following in 2001 and another slated for the summer of 2015), the

franchise was largely absent in the majority of the nineties compared to the

massive success it enjoyed throughout the eighties. (Box Office Mojo, F)

44!

Besides James Cameron’s

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

topping the yearly

box office in 1991 with $204 million (granted, the original

Terminator

did not

even crack the top twenty in 1984), the concept of the blockbuster franchise no

longer had the box office draw it had enjoyed for almost a decade; for example,

the three James Bond films released in the nineties barely cracked the top ten in

each of their respective release years. Much of the top ten highest grossing films

from 1990 to 1998 involved bombastic stand-alones in the blockbuster genre

(1995’s

Apollo 13,

1996’s

Independence Day

and

Twister

, and 1998’s

Armageddon

Disney’s animated children’s films (1991’s

Beauty and the Beast,

1993’s Aladdin,

and 1994’s

The Lion King

), character-driven dramas (1990’s

Ghost

, 1994’s

Forrest

Gump,

and 1997’s

Titanic

), or comedies (1993’s

Mrs. Doubtfire

, 1997’s

Liar Liar

, and

1998’s

There’s Something About Mary

). (Box Office Mojo, G)

These films were not followed with feature film sequels, if they spawned a

sequel at all (the Disney films all spawned direct-to-video sequels nowhere near as

successful as their predecessors). Most films in this period focused on major stars,

such as Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Robin Williams, and Jim Carrey, or relied on the

reputation of the parent studio, such as the slate of successful Disney films

released from 1989 to 1999 – a period known as the “Disney Renaissance”. (

TIME

2014)

The true blockbuster only appeared a handful of times, with

Terminator 2

Jurassic Park, Independence Day

Twister

Armageddon

, and

Titanic

as the most

notable examples given the broad scope of the content and marketing. Beyond

strengthening a film’s merchandising and licensing opportunities like

Jurassic

Park

did in 1993 (Shone, 219) and further revolutionizing marketing tactics as

Independence Day

did with being the first film to show a trailer during the Super

45!

Bowl (Shone, 239), the furious growth of the blockbuster franchise throughout the

eighties had noticeably slowed and eventually stagnated in the nineties.

However, 1999 would be the year that the blockbuster would once again

experience a massive period of change, entering a new phase of the Blockbuster

Era that once again focused on franchises and evolving technology and

marketing tactics.

The force to usher in this period was George Lucas’ 1999 release of

Star

Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

, the first film in his prequel

Star Wars

trilogy.

A. THE RETURN OF GEORGE LUCAS

On the cusp of the twenty-first century and released roughly sixteen years

after the debut of

Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi

in 1983 (the last film

in the original trilogy) George Lucas’

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom

Menace

reminded Hollywood and the world of the power of the blockbuster

franchise.

In June 1994, George Lucas publicly announced his intention to return to

the

Star Wars

universe with a prequel trilogy, to the delight of fans everywhere.

(Kim, 1994) Just three years later in 1997, the three films of the original trilogy

were released to coincide with the twenty-year anniversary of the release of the

seminal

Star Wars

film in 1977. Collectively, the three films earned over $250

million at the domestic box office that year alone. (Box Office Mojo, G) By the last

quarter of 1998, anticipation for the next entry in the

Star Wars

film series had

reached new heights.

46!

In November 1998, the first trailer for

Phantom

was released on Apple’s

film trailer website, and because of the five years of anticipation building for the

Star Wars

fandom, the trailer release resulted in an early Internet phenomenon,

setting a precedent for marketing campaigns to come. (Lambie, 2014)

While the first trailer was available for viewing and downloading on the

Apple site, it also debuted at 75 theaters the same weekend.

At Apple, servers were clogged as unprecedented web traffic flooded the

site. Steve Jobs called it the largest web event in history when it reached 10

million downloads by year’s end. A year later, it had been downloaded 35 million

times. (Lambie, 2014)

In theaters, the trailer (showing both before and after the respective

features) was coupled with three films: Brad Pitt vehicle

Meet Joe Black

, Adam

Sandler starrer

The Waterboy

, and the Bruce Willis action film

The Seige

. Ticket

sales were substantial for the three films given the attachment of the well-

publicized trailer. However, audience members across the nation left theaters

showing the three films immediately after viewing the trailer, only to return from

the lobby to view the second run of the preview after the credits. The

Star Wars

fandom emerged as something studios sought to cultivate, seeking out franchises

capable of inspiring such a level of interest. (Shefrin, 261)

The online release of the second, longer trailer in early 1999 resulted in 3.5

million downloads in 3 days. (Lambie, 2014) But the hysterical levels of interest

did not end there. Lucas’

Phantom

also marked one of the most extensive cross-

promotional marketing campaigns of all time, (Block, 2012) which would

ultimately help to bring the film to worldwide box office grosses over $925

million – second only (at the time) to James Cameron’s

Titanic

, when not

adjusting for inflation.

47!

With the renewed interest in the franchise coming after Lucas’

announcement and the 1991 publication of a wildly successful novel series set by

Timothy Zahn set in the

Star Wars

universe, Hasbro and Lucasfilm began

manufacturing action figures once again in 1995 after a hiatus in the early part of

the decade. The result was $4oo million yearly revenues by 1998, (Shone, 279) the

same year that the marketing campaign for the new film would go into full

effect.

While 20

Century Fox only had allotted $2o million for the film’s

advertising campaign,

Phantom

benefited greatly from partners’ own campaigns.

Of these, Tricon Global Restaurants (now known as Yum! Brands) and PepsiCo

had the most memorable and extensive promotions. (Elliott, 1999)

Tricon – the group that owns various major fast food brands including

KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut – embarked on the first ever campaign that

interconnected multiple restaurants. While films had commonly teamed with

established fast food chains for children’s toys and themed beverage containers,

Tricon took this synergistic relationship to a more intricate level, tying all three

into the

Star Wars

universe. (

Los Angeles Times

, 1999)

To highlight unique elements of the film, the three restaurants were given

distinct themes based from three of the film’s fictional planets: KFC turned into

Naboo, Pizza Hut became Coruscant, and Taco Bell was themed as Tatooine. In

all, there were twenty-eight collectible toys available at the three chains, with

each restaurant having its own distinct set of toys. (

Los Angeles Times,

1999)

Thus, Tricon was encouraging a visit to all three to get the full set of

Star Wars

merchandise.

48!

PepsiCo also embarked on an extensive promotional campaign, hoping to

benefit from

Star Wars

’ popularity. The company released a line of special edition

twenty-four pack cans, sixteen ounce and two liter bottles featuring prominent

characters and accompanying miniature biographies.

Other notable marketing deals include toy manufacturer Hasbro paying

$600 million and offering 7.4 percent of the company as equity to Lucasfilm for

the licensing rights to produce the toys for the three prequels. (

Los Angeles

Times,

1999) It would seem everyone wanted a piece of

The Phantom Menace

and 20

Century Fox wanted to make sure everyone involved wouldn’t regret it.

In a power play in the distributor and exhibitor relationship and in the

aftermath of steep box office drops in the vein of

Independence Day

, Twentieth

Century Fox demanded that exhibitors (theaters and theater chains) keep the film

showing on the biggest screens at least two months after its debut on May 19 –

peak summer blockbuster times. (King & Krzywinska, 96)

Ultimately,

Star Wars

Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace

was a major box

office success as the highest grossing film of 1999 with $984 million worldwide,

besting the second place film (

The Sixth Sense

) by over $300 million. (Shone, 292)

While the film would be key in ushering in a newer, bigger blockbuster franchise

era,

Phantom

was not bulletproof.

In the world of film marketing, the sales numbers disappointed the film’s

various promotional partners following the film’s release. While the film still

generated around $300 million in revenues from merchandising in 1999 (Shone,

289), the final number paled in comparison to the previous estimates that boasted

total sales of up to $1,500 million. (

Los Angeles Times

, 1999)

Many blame the lackluster reception of the film by critics and fans of the

original series that alienated and disappointed many audience members,

49!

resulting in a lessened desire to purchase beyond the initial movie ticket. (Shefrin,

270)

Thus, while studios lusted for a devoted fan base like

Star Wars

, Hollywood

also realized that the same fan base could turn against a series if not satisfied with

the creative direction.

Despite the poor reception of

Phantom

, its two sequels went on to perform

very well. 2002’s

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

grossed $650 million

worldwide, and 2005’s

Episode III – The Revenge of the Sith

grossed $860 million,

making it the highest grossing of that year. (Box Office Mojo, H) Obviously, the

Star Wars

franchise was dimmed in no permanent way, as the combined box

office, licensed goods, and home entertainment grosses have reached $3o billion

as of 2012. (Block, 2012) Disney will release a seventh

Star Wars

film in December

2015, launching a new sequel trilogy, including two planned separate, standalone

films.

Following the box office numbers of

Phantom Menace

, the search for

another billion-dollar franchise became the trend as studios sought out other

high-concept properties with lucrative potential. With the return of Lucas,

another era of blockbuster franchises was launched, continuing to the present

day.

B. THE MILLENNIALS: THE FRANCHISE AND THE

FAMILIAR

While 1999 was dominated by George Lucas and

The Phantom Menace

, a

handful of other notable franchises either began or had an entry that year as well,

50!

including the

Toy Story

Austin Powers

The Matrix

, and

The Mummy

franchises.

Each of the respective entries all ranked in the domestic top ten of that year.

Five franchise installments had not been in the top ten since 1995.

However, 1995’s slate saw some of those five just barely clearing $100 million, but

1999 saw every franchise film in the top ten making over $150 million. (Box Office

Mojo, G) This further signaled a resurgence in the prominence of the franchise.

By 2011, the entire top ten of the domestic box office would consist of sequels or

seminal films in now existing or planned franchises, (Cieply, 2011) with each

grossing from $181 million (Marvel’s

Thor)

to $381 million (

Harry Potter and the

Deathly Hallows Part 2

Another impact of 1999 besides the return of the franchise stemmed from

Warner Bros. and its CEO Alan Horn. Before that year, tent pole films had

become a mainstay of Hollywood, yet Horn decided to pursue the concept even

further – as an overall release strategy for the studio.

Essentially, of the twenty-five films planned for release in the following

year, Warner Bros. would pour a majority of production and advertising money

into four or five of them, a strategy never before done by a studio to that extent.

The result was that Warner Bros. became the first studio to post over $1 billion

revenues fourteen straight years in a row since the beginning of its

Harry Potter

franchise in 2001. Now, virtually every major studio operates this way, focusing on

blockbusters and franchises to carry their financial years. (Elberse, 1-3, 18)

In the wake of 1999 – dubbed by

Entertainment Weekly

as “the year that

changed the movies” – the film industry would see rapid changes in just a few

short years, with films released in 2000 and 2001 featuring and inspiring pivotal

developments that would lead to the contemporary variety of blockbusters that

we see today.

51!

With the successful release of

The Phantom Menace

in 1999 and the

revolutionary business strategy of Warner Bros. under Alan Horn, many studios

sought out and put into production films with franchise potential, existing

familiarity, and – most importantly – built-in fan bases.

Tried-and-true properties would grow to dominate this new era of the

blockbuster, giving us multiple film franchises based on wildly popular, diverse

book series (

The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games

);

nostalgia-inducing comics (

X-Men

Spider-Man, The Avengers

); television shows

(Charlie’s Angels, Alvin and the Chipmunks, 21 Jump Street

); toy properties

(

Transformers

The LEGO Movie

); variations of familiar western lore (

Shrek, The

Pirates of the Caribbean

); remakes (

War of the Worlds, King Kong, Alice in

Wonderland

); and reboots, including fresh entries in the James Bond

, Planet of

the Apes, Indiana Jones

Batman

and

Superman

franchises.

Notable standalone

blockbusters include superhero drama

Hancock,

space epic

Avatar,

science fiction

thriller

Inception,

and Disney’s animated

Frozen

. (Box Office Mojo, F)

From all of these, three specific varieties of the blockbuster genre would

emerge and be heavily exploited throughout the new millennium: the animated

children’s film, the comic film, and the fantasy and science fiction book series

turned film series.

i. THE BIG THREE

Five films from 2000 and 2001 would serve as early examples of the three

major blockbuster categories that would come to dominate this new era:

X-Men

(2000),

Shrek

and

Monsters Inc.

(both 2001), and

The Lord of the Rings: The

52!

Fellowship of the Ring

and

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

(also both in

2001).

While comic book series had been adapted to film in the past – the subpar

Superman

series in the seventies and eighties starring Christopher Reeves and

Tim Burton’s

Batman

series that ended with 1997’s critically unsuccessful and

commercially underwhelming

Batman & Robin

immediately come to mind –

they had never been central to the blockbuster. (Box Office Mojo, F)

In 2000, director Bryan Singer’s

X-Men

would be the first major superhero

release of the new millennia and, along with Sam Raimi’s

Spider-Man

in 2002,

would permanently infuse superhero mythos into the blockbuster genre.

Based on a very popular Marvel comic book series,

X-Men

was built to be a

success for studio 20

Century Fox. With 270 million copies sold since the

seventies, the comic series is the fifth highest selling of all time and holds the

distinction of having the Guinness World Record for the highest selling single

issue ever, with 8.1 million copies sold of

X-Men

#1 in 1991. (Baker, 2014) In a

throwback to the

Star Wars

strategy in 1977, Fox tapped into this vein by releasing

a comic book before the film’s release to introduce Marvel fans to the changes to

be seen in the film, especially involving the new backstories of famous characters

Rogue, Wolverine, and Magneto.

With such an enormous fan base already in existence, the film easily

ranked as the eighth highest grossing domestic release of 2000 with $157 million,

and was well-received by critics and fans alike, ultimately leading to a sprawling

franchise including seven films with another planned for release in 2016. Of these

films, four of them ranked in the top ten of their respective release years. (Box

Office Mojo, F) Beyond giving rise to a lucrative film franchise, the original

X-

Men

film would most importantly lead to a massive resurgence in the superhero

53!

genre, paving the way for 2002’s megahit

Spider-Man

and the various superhero

films to follow.

Before we venture into the increasingly intricate web of the superhero

blockbuster, let’s take a look at 2001 and the remaining two subgenres of the

blockbuster that surfaced that year.

When glancing at the worldwide top four highest grossing films of 2001,

the evidence becomes clear: fantasy and animation sell.

While Pixar’s

Toy Story

films released in 1995 and 1999 had enjoyed

enormous success (with the first film ranking number one at the domestic box

office for the year), animation had not been in its heyday since the big three of

Disney’s “Renaissance period” – 1991’s

Beauty and the Beast

, 1992’s

Aladdin

, and

1994’s

The Lion King

. (

TIME

, 2014) All three of these films were among the top

three highest grossing in their respective years, with

Aladdin

and

The Lion King

topping the 1992 and 1994 worldwide box offices, respectively. (Box Office Mojo,

2001 was the first time that animated films occupied two slots in the top

five simultaneously, with Pixar’s

Monsters, Inc.

and DreamWorks Pictures’

Shrek

coming in at third and fourth worldwide with $529 and $484 million earned,

respectively. (Though at the domestic box office, their places would be reversed,

with

Shrek

earning $268 million versus

Monsters, Inc.

with $256 million.)

Shrek

would go on to become the most lucrative animated franchise of all

time. (The Numbers, 2015)

While Pixar, a subsidiary of Disney that actually began with Lucasfilm in

1979, would cement its place, along with Walt Disney Animations, as one of the

leading studios in animation in this new blockbuster era, with several blockbuster

hits and franchises following

Monsters, Inc.

54!

The top two slots of the highest grossing films worldwide in 2001 –

occupied by

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

and

The Lord of the Rings: The

Fellowship of the Ring

– illuminated the third major genre of the new

blockbuster era: a film franchise based on an established and successful book

series.

While previous blockbuster franchises often came from original ideas

conceived by screenwriters – George Lucas created both the

Star Wars

and

Indiana Jones

universes, Steven Spielberg based

E.T.

off of experiences from his

childhood, and Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis created the

Back to the Future

franchise universe –

The Lord of the Rings

and

Harry Potter

franchises would

usher in a new era of blockbuster that was heavily dependent on adapting already

extremely popular existent works.

While some detractors argue this recent trend lessens the originality of

mainstream Hollywood to an extent (in a causal effect, studios become less

willing to take risks on properties that are not already a familiar component of

popular culture in some capacity) from a marketing standpoint, developing and

distributing these two properties was a brilliant move by studios New Line

Cinema (

The Lord of the Rings

) and Warner Bros. (

Harry Potter

). Because of the

immense popularity spanning across generations for J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings and

author J.K. Rowling’s magical appeal with children and young adults, both studios

had their marketing cut out for themselves. As a result both film franchises set

new records.

The Lord of the Rings

became one of the highest grossing film franchises

of all time, managing to make a combined $2.9 billion at the worldwide box office

between the three films. Each film ranked in the top two of its release year, with

The Fellowship of the Ring

coming behind

Harry Potter

in 2001. In 2002,

The Two

55!

Towers

would rank number one worldwide with $934 million.

The

Return of the

King

, the

final film in the trilogy, also ranked number one at the global box

office in 2003 with $1.1 billion, becoming the second film after

Titanic

to cross the

billion-dollar threshold. (The Numbers, 2015)

The success of the original trilogy led Peter Jackson to also adapt

The

Hobbit

into three films, serving as a prequel trilogy in the vein of

Star Wars

. Just

like that trilogy, this one was commercially successful (with a total $2.8 billion in

worldwide grosses as of March 2015) yet faced both critical and fan scrutiny. In the

end, the combined trilogies amount to $5.8 billion. (The Numbers, 2015)

The franchise has spawned a wide array of merchandise – including

numerous video games, actions figures, and costumes – and has earned a

permanent place in pop culture, referred to as recently as December 2014 with

political satire film

The Interview

With ten films running from 2001 to 2011, the

Harry Potter

series is the

most successful blockbuster franchise in cinema history at $7.7 billion in

worldwide grosses. Three of these films have topped worldwide grosses, in 2001,

2005, and 2011. (The Numbers, 2015)

Along with Tolkien’s works, J.K. Rowling’s book series is also one of the

most successful of all time. Overall, the brand, including the book series, is

valued at $15 billion dollars. (Aquino, 2011)

Ultimately, the aforementioned films of 2000 and 2001 paved the way for a

plethora of similar films to follow. A breakdown of each genre and its highlights

will follow, working from animation, to comics, to fantasy and science fiction

book series.

56!

ANIMATION

2001’s

Shrek

would go on to spawn three more sequels, with

Shrek 2

becoming the highest grossing film in 2004 and the highest grossing animated

film until

Toy Story 3

in 2010.

Toy Story 3

would subsequently be dethroned by

Disney’s 2014 blockbuster

Frozen

The

Shrek

series would eventually become the worldwide highest grossing

animated blockbuster franchise of all time at $3.5 billion, easily eclipsing the

Ice

Age

($2.8 billion),

Madagascar (

$2.4 billion),

Toy Story

($2.0 billion),

Despicable

($1.5 billion)

Cars

, ($1.4 billion)

Monsters, Inc.

($1.3 billion), and

Kung Fu

Panda

($1.3 billion) franchises. Interestingly, the only franchise listed here that

has an entry before 2001 is

Toy Story

, further giving evidence to the phenomenon

started by

Shrek

and the original

Monsters, Inc

. (The Numbers, 2015)

Other notable stand-alones in the animated genre include

WALL-E

(2008)

, (2008),

Tangled

(2010),

Brave

(2012),

Frozen

(2013),

The LEGO Movie

(2014)

and

Big Hero 6

(2014). Each of these films ranked in the top tens of their years and

grossed more than $200 million at the domestic box office. (Box Office Mojo, G)

(Though

Frozen, The LEGO Movie,

and

Big Hero 6

are all stand-alone films at the

moment, there are planned sequels in the works).

As a sign that more hybrid films may be on the way in the future,

The

LEGO Movie

and

Big Hero 6

combine multiple blockbuster subgenres into the

animated genre.

The LEGO Movie

is based on a popular toy line and features

various iconic characters from blockbusters past, such as DC Comics superhero

Batman and

Star Wars

character Han Solo.

Big Hero 6

is actually a popular

Marvel comic turned animated film – the first blockbuster of its kind.

57!

While animated film franchises have enjoyed enormous success, they still

pale in comparison to their live action counterparts, with films based on comics

and superheroes and franchises based on fantasy and science fiction novel series

enjoying the most success.

COMICS

2000’s

X-Men

brought the superhero film back into prominence after the

original

Batman

franchise fizzled out in the mid nineties, and an emerging

intertwining relationship between the blockbuster and popular comics would be

cemented by mid-decade.

Following its release in 2000,

X-Men

would have two successful sequels

follow in 2003 and 2006, with 2006’s

X-Men: The Last Stand

boasting a series high

domestic gross of $234 million. During this same timeframe, the

Spider

Man

series and Christopher Nolan’s

Batman

reboot would also be experiencing

success.

Upon release in 2002,

Spider-Man

was the second major comic release in

the new era, and an enormous hit, ranking number one for the year domestically

with $404 million and second globally with $822 million (losing to

The Two

Towers’

$926 million haul).

In 2004,

Shrek 2’

s $441 and $920 million domestic and worldwide grosses

would manage to overshadow

Spider-Man 2

’s $374 and $784 million, but

Spider-

Man 3

would occupy the top spots both domestically and worldwide in 2007 with

$337 and $891 million respectively. By the time of

Spiderman 3

’s huge commercial

success, the superhero craze was just beginning to catch hold of American

cinema. (Box Office Mojo, G) (Box Office Mojo, H)

58!

Released in 2005,

Batman Begins

would be the first in Nolan’s

The Dark

Knight

trilogy, starring Christian Bale as Batman. While this film ranked eighth

in its year of release, the two sequels would eventually become box office

phenomena in 2008 and 2012.

In the year 2008 – the first year that the superhero really began to reign

supreme – Nolan’s

The Dark Knight

ranked number one for the year and became

the fourth film to cross the $1 billion benchmark, a record it only managed by $4

million. (A complete list of billion dollar films in chronological order can be

found at Appendix A.)

Also in 2008, the

Iron Man

series kicked off, coming in at second and

eighth for the year domestically and globally, with $318 and $585 million

respectively. Eventually, the success of this film would lead to the current box

office powerhouse, the Marvel Cinematic Universe – a franchise shared by Marvel

Studios, Paramount, and Disney.

In 2009, the first of two

X-Men

spin-off films focusing on Wolverine, the

character played by Hugh Jackman, would be released, with another following in

2013. The success of the 2009 film would ultimately lead to a prequel and

crossover trilogy beginning in 2011 with

X-Men: First Class

, starring bankable star

Jennifer Lawrence, and continuing with 2014 release

X-Men: Days of Future Past

which became the most commercially and critically successful entry in the series

with worldwide grosses of $748 million. A sequel is planned for 2016. (Box Office

Mojo, F)

In 2010,

Iron Man 2

would rank third for the year, with two films in the

same Marvel Cinematic Universe released the following year:

Thor

and

Captain

America: The First Avenger

, ranking tenth and twelfth worldwide but garnering

positive reviews.

59!

In the biggest year of the superhero so far, 2012 featured

Marvel’s The

Avengers

and the final installment in Nolan’s Batman trilogy,

The Dark Knight

Rises

The Avengers,

focused on Marvel’s crime fighting super group featuring

famous characters Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and

Captain America, went on to break multiple box office records, including the

largest opening weekend in domestic history at $207 million. Ultimately the film

would become the third highest grossing film both domestically and worldwide,

with a total gross of $1.5 billion. (Box Office Mojo, E)

The film is only bested by James Cameron’s hits

Titanic

and

Avatar.

(

The

Avengers

would have been the second highest grossing film in the domestic

market with $623 million, but a rerelease of

Titanic

in early 2012 to commemorate

the one hundred year anniversary of the ship sinking allowed the film to top the

superheroes by a little over $25 million.) (Box Office Mojo, D)

The genius combination of the various franchise films in Marvel,

Paramount, and Disney’s roster allowed for

The Avengers

to become the ultimate

crossover film with maximum marketing appeal. As of March 2015, there have

been ten films released in this shared universe since 2008, with two more due out

later this year, including a direct sequel to

The Avengers

in May.

In all, there are eleven more films in this franchise planned for release

through 2019, with the franchise currently ranked as the second highest grossing

of all time (behind

Harry Potter

) at $7.2 billion. (The Numbers, 2015) Also, the

franchise includes numerous video games, two current television series on ABC

titled

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

and

Marvel’s Agent Carter

, and five spin-off

streaming series in the works for Netflix based on various Marvel properties.

(Marvel, 2015)

60!

The second place film in 2012 was

The Dark Knight Rises,

which was not as

successful as its predecessor in the domestic market, but ultimately crossed $1

billion worldwide, eventually becoming the eleventh highest grossing film of all

time at $1,084 million.

Also, 2012 saw the arrival of a Spider-Man reboot, just five years after

Spider-Man 3

was released. This film,

The Amazing Spider-Man

, would rank

seventh for the year with a worldwide gross of $758 million. 2014 would see its

sequel

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

rank eighth, grossing $50 million less than its

predecessor. Recently, it was announced that this particular franchise would be

put on hiatus, as Disney worked out a deal with Sony to buy the rights of the

character so that the Spider-Man character can join future

Avengers

movies,

further strengthening the appeal of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even so, the

Spider-Man

franchise is the sixth highest grossing of all time at $3.9 billion

worldwide. (The Numbers, 2015)

2013 saw two Marvel Cinematic Universe extensions enjoy success, as Iron

Man 3 became the second highest grossing film domestically and globally with

$409 and $1,215 million respectively.

Thor: The Dark World

would rank tenth for

the year at $645 million worldwide.

Also in 2013, a rival studio would begin an attempt at mimicking the

success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Warner Bros.’ DC Comics’ shared

film universe beginning with 2013’s

Man of Steel

– a Superman reboot. Unlike the

failed reboot

Superman Returns

in 2006, this film fared much better with critics

and fans alike, with the film ranking ninth worldwide – besting Marvel’s

Thor:

The Dark World

by $23 million with $668 million earned globally.

Following the success of

Man of Steel

, Warner Bros. announced a film

series that includes a Batman reboot and Superman crossover slated for release in

61!

2016 and an eventual massive Justice League film, featuring characters

Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Aquaman, in the vein of

The

Avengers

. The franchise universe also includes two current television shows on

The CW,

Arrow

and

The Flash

with another based on Supergirl in the works.

Overall, the studio plans to release ten films in this franchise between 2016 and

2020. (Cecchini, 2015)

Finally, 2014 saw the release of two more entries in the Marvel Cinematic

Universe:

Guardians of the Galaxy

, which ranked third both domestically and

worldwide with $333 and $774 million respectively, and

Captain America: The

Winter Soldier

, which earned $260 and $714 million respectively.

While the comic book films obviously have managed to become wildly

popular since 2000, with only increasing popularity on the horizon, another

subgenre of blockbuster has also emerged as a juggernaut.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

The Lord of the Rings

and its prequel trilogy

The Hobbit

both dominated

worldwide box offices from 2001 – 2003 and from 2012 – 2014, respectively,

crowning worldwide grosses in 2002 and 2003. The

Harry Potter

film series –

consisting of ten films in all – also dominated the box office between 2001 and

2011, occupying the top spot worldwide three times – in 2001, 2005, and 2011. (Box

Office Mojo, G)

While these two remain to be overwhelmingly successful and popular,

similar film series also developed between 2001 and 2014.

The earliest was an adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ beloved children’s book

The

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

released in 2005,

62!

which ranked third worldwide with $745 million, behind entries in

Harry Potter

and

Star Wars

. However, the two sequels to follow in 2008 and 2010 would see

diminishing interest. By the 2010 entry

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

, the

franchise could only muster $416 million worldwide, bringing production on any

further book adaptations from the series to a halt. (Box Office Mojo, F)

The other franchises of this nature to follow would fare much better. 2008’s

Twilight

– based on the seminal novel in a series of enormously popular young

adult romance novels – ranked thirteenth worldwide at just under $400 million.

But the four sequels to follow would become huge hits thanks to a rabid teen fan

base, a growing worldwide audience, and savvy marketing.

New Moon

– the

sequel in 2009 – would generate over $700 million worldwide, with the next two

(

Eclipse

Breaking Dawn – Part 1

) posting similar numbers.

Breaking Dawn – Part

, the final entry in 2012, would earn over $877 million, bringing the franchise to

over $3.3 billion worldwide and ranking eleventh among all franchises. (The

Numbers, 2015)

Taking a note from previous blockbusters,

The Twilight

franchise also

extended its reach by incorporating popular music. In this case, each film in the

saga released a specially tailored soundtrack featuring music inspired from the

film performed by various alternative, angst-driven rock bands. Matching the

tone of the music to the tortured love themes heavily present in the series

resulted in high sales, with each of the soundtracks debuting in the top three of

the Billboard Top 200 albums. (

Billboard

, 2008 & 2009) The first two soundtracks

debuted reached number one, with all five soundtracks selling over 5.8 million

copies combined in the United States alone.

2012 would also mark the beginning of another enormous franchise –

The

Hunger Games

helmed solely by a female heroine, Katniss Everdeen portrayed

63!

by Jennifer Lawrence. Based on a popular dystopian, science fiction young adult

book series,

The Hunger Games

would be the first time that an action

blockbuster franchise would be carried by a female character.

Given that the actress is Jennifer Lawrence – who is key in the current

X-

Men

revival starting in 2011 – it is no surprise that this franchise is shaping up to

be an enormous success.

The film would go on to become the third highest grossing film in the

domestic market of 2012 with $408 million, only behind

The Avengers

and the

final chapter in

The Dark Knight

trilogy. The film would eventually gross $691

million worldwide.

With successive releases following in 2013 and 2014,

The Hunger Games

franchise has earned over $2.3 billion worldwide with the much-hyped final entry

slated for release in late 2015. The second film in the series – 2013’s

Catching Fire

–

was the highest grossing domestic release with $424 million earned, marking the

first time a year’s highest grossing film was anchored solely by a female star. The

film also ranks tenth all time among the top unadjusted domestic grossers. (Box

Office Mojo, D)

Worldwide,

Catching Fire

ranked fifth for the year, despite being one of

three films grossing over $400 million at the domestic market – the others being

Iron Man 3

and

Frozen

Released in November 2014, the third film in the franchise –

Mockingjay

Part 1

– grossed $337 million stateside, which while less than its predecessor still

brought it to second place in the domestic market for the year behind

American

Sniper

. Even so, the film has earned $753 million worldwide as of March 2015,

ranking second in the franchise and fifth for the year. The franchise currently

64!

ranks as the sixteenth highest grossing of all time at $2.3 billion, with the final

release in the series still on its way in November 2015. (The Numbers, 2015)

Twilight

before it, this film series also tapped into its target young

adult demographic through music, thought not as successfully. Even so, “The

Hanging Tree”, a song from the film composed by James Newton Howard and

featuring vocals by Jennifer Lawrence, managed to peak at number twelve on the

Billboard Hot 100 in late 2014 with virtually no promotion. (

Billboard

, James

Newton Howard)

With the breakout success of the

Twilight Saga

and

The Hunger Games

Series

, several studios began optioning other young adult novel series. 2014 saw

the debut of two more young adult franchises –

The Divergent Series

and

The

Maze Runner Series

– to mixed results.

Where the first

Twilight

and

Hunger Games

films grossed almost $400

and $700 million worldwide, the films to kick-start these two franchises did not

quite reach those numbers.

Opening in the spring of 2014 and starring Shailene Woodley

, Divergent

ultimately grossed $150 million stateside, barely cracking the top twenty for the

domestic market. The film went on to garnering only $289 million worldwide,

less than half of

The

Hunger Games

’ numbers for its first film. Even so, four

more releases are planned through 2017, becoming only the second action series

to be helmed by a female star. (Box Office Mojo, F)

Opening in fall 2014,

The Maze Runner

barely grossed over $100 million,

coming in at thirtieth for the year in the domestic market. However, the film

fared better overseas where grosses reached $341 million. With sequels currently

in the works, another young adult action franchise is born.

65!

Early 2015 saw the latest in the trend of fiction series turned film series as

the first novel in E.L. James controversial book series

Fifty Shades of Grey

was

brought to the big screen. As of March 2015, the film ranks at number one for the

year so far, both domestically and globally with $160 and $546 million earned.

(Box Office Mojo, G)

While films based on fiction, comics, or centered on animation are among

some of the most lucrative blockbusters, not every standalone and franchise can

fit into these categories. The most notable are

The Pirates of Caribbean

and

Avatar

franchises and standalone film

Inception

(2012).

As one of the earliest

franchises of the new era, Disney’s

The Pirates of the

Caribbean

began with

The Curse of the Black Pearl

in 2003. Inspired by Disney’s

“Pirates of the Caribbean” theme park ride that has been running since 1967, the

film combines several pirate legends and tropes into an original work. Critically

and commercially successful, the film ultimately grossed $654 million worldwide,

ranking third domestically and fourth globally. The sequel in 2006 –

Dead Man’s

Chest

– became the third film in cinematic history to gross over $1 billion,

grossing $1.07 billion worldwide. (Box Office Mojo, F)

The third film

At World’s End

released in 2007 was a box office success

despite being critically panned. While it only ranked fourth in the domestic

market, the film was the highest grossing of the year worldwide at $964 million.

Originally conceived as a trilogy, Disney released another sequel in 2011,

On Stranger Tides

. This film ultimately grossed $1.05 billion, making

Pirates of

the Caribbean

the first blockbuster franchise to have two films gross over $1

billion. That honor would eventually grow to include

The Dark Knight

trilogy

and the

Transformers

series. (Box Office Mojo, E)

66!

Transformers

– based off of a Japanese toy line beginning in the eighties –

was also released in 2007, to generally positive reactions. The film would

ultimately rank fifth worldwide at $709 million. Three sequels would follow in

2009, 2011, and 2014. The series reached its zenith with the 2011 sequel

Dark of the

Moon

grossing $1.1 billion. The 2014 reboot

Age of Extinction

would be the second

film from the franchise to exceed $1 billion in worldwide grosses, with $1.09

billion earned. Ultimately, the franchise has generated over $3.8 billion, ranking

eighth among all blockbuster franchises. (The Numbers, 2015)

Following the James Bond reboot starring Pierce Brosnan that consisted of

four films between 1995 and 2002, a new series would begin in 2006 with Daniel

Craig starring as Bond in

Casino Royale

. The film and its 2008 sequel

Quantum of

Solace

were well received worldwide, with both making $599 and $586 million

respectively, all-time highs for a franchise that began all the way back in 1963,

features 23 films, and ranks third all time. (The Numbers, 2015)

Skyfall

the third film released in 2012, would double the individual grosses

of its two predecessors, becoming the first Bond film to gross over $1 billion

worldwide, coming in at $1.1 billion. A fourth film titled

Spectre

is planned for

release in late 2015. (Box Office Mojo, F)

The franchise with the most potential behind the Marvel Cinematic

Universe would begin in 2009. Director James Cameron – known for

Titanic

–

would best his own records by helming the highest grossing film of all time,

Avatar

As a space film featuring revolutionary special effects in the vein of

Star

Wars

, containing a torturous love story reminiscent of

Titanic

, and focusing on an

epic adventure in the vein of

The Lord of the Rings,

Avatar

had all the

ingredients to become a record breaking hit. The film became the first film to

67!

surpass $2 billion at the worldwide box office, surpassing

Titanic

($1.84 billion

before its 2012 rerelease)

by almost $1 billion for a grand total of $2.78 billion.

Three planned sequels are currently in production, aiming for 2017, 2018, and 2019

consecutive releases. (Box Office Mojo, F)

As one can see, the blockbuster market became intensely crowded

following Lucas’ return in 1999 and the emergence of the big three blockbuster

genres beginning in 2000 and 2001. To date, fourteen of the top twenty highest

grossing film franchises did not exist before 2000, though every franchise in the

top twenty has had at least one entry released in the last fifteen years. (The

Numbers, 2015)

As of 2015, the blockbuster franchise remains at the peak it reached in 2011,

causing the franchise period in the eighties to pale in comparison.

With so much competition, studios began to expend even more on

marketing than previously imagined, utilizing everything possible to sell their

films to the masses. Joining the prescribed strategy would be the most important

media platform to emerge since television: the Internet.

ii. INNOVATIONS IN MODERN MOVIE MARKETING

With the public use of Internet becoming relatively normal by the late

years of the nineties, studios tentatively began exploring options for film

marketing campaigns. Two of the most notable early forays into the Internet

(beyond the trailer release for

Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace

) come

from very different sources:

The Blair Witch Project

and

The Lord of the Rings.

68!

While 1999 may be the year of the return of George Lucas, it would also

mark the year that modern viral marketing originated with

The Blair Witch

Project

. Filmed in 1997 by a group of young actors and filmmakers, production

for the film only cost $22,000. (Lambie, 2013)

Six months before the film was set to debut at the 1998 Sundance Film

Festival, directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez created a website that

filled in the “backstory” for the film, alleging that the events depicted in the

“found-footage” film were true.

When the film was sold to distributor Artisan Entertainment in 1999, the

filmmakers continually updated the site with fake interviews, news articles, and

other sources of information regarding the “disappearance” of the stars in the

film. Artisan Entertainment also chose not to market the film traditionally,

instead opting to show brief trailers at colleges and enlisting the Sci-Fi channel

for a fake documentary, further setting the stage for the film’s release. While the

marketing campaign ultimately cost $25 million, news of the film and its content

steadily gained media attention. (Lambie, 2013)

While information on the Internet could be shared in 1999, fact-checking

websites could not be done quickly, allowing the information to maintain an air

of mystery. The website accumulated millions of hits, with a community of fans

forming before the film was even released.

After the opening weekend of the film, Artisan did not boast about the

monetary performance. Choosing to showcase the power of the web, the company

simply released a statement as follows: “blairwitch.com: 21,222,589 hits to date”.

(English, 2013)

In all, the film would earn $140 million at the domestic box office, ranking

tenth for the year. Worldwide, it would go on to make $257 million, recouping

69!

over $220 million for Artisan when all was said and done, making the film one of

the most successful independent films of all time and further evolving and

challenging the very definition of the blockbuster. (English, 2013)

Around the same time, director and writer Peter Jackson and co-writer

Fran Walsh were exploring opportunities on the web with their

The Lord of the

Rings

films. The result of their efforts was the exploitation of participatory

fandom that would become integral to the marketing processes of various

blockbuster franchises to come. (Shefrin, 261-262)

While Jackson and Walsh were both concerned with securing financing

from a major studio – with New Line Cinema eventually buying the rights to

produce and distribute the film – they were also concerned with maintaining the

integrity of J.R.R. Tolkien’s enormously popular work.

To ensure that Tolkien’s generation-spanning fandom would be appeased,

Jackson enlisted the aid of the Internet to gain access to millions of Tolkien fans.

In 1998, Jackson teamed up with Harry Knowles, an online media critic

who runs the popular website

Ain’t It Cool News

, to answer twenty questions

regarding the films’ production taken from a pool of 14,000 submissions.

His answers were very detailed, allowing the participating fans to feel like

they were actually part of the process of bringing Tolkien’s works to the silver

screen. And in some ways, they were. (Shefrin, 266-268)

Also interacting with various Tolkien websites – which totaled to more

than 400 before the release of the seminal film in the original trilogy – Jackson

took into account online fan suggestions for casting and the screenplay. He even

made a formal announcement that he would adhere more closely than planned

to the original works in response to a petition with over 16,000 signatures from

TolkienOnline.com demanding he do so.

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In January 2001, almost a full year before the December 2001 release of the

first film

The Fellowship of the Ring

New Line Cinema’s official website for the

film trilogy released a bevy of rich, interactive features in a first-of-its-kind move.

The features released included video and audio clips, interviews with cast

members, chat rooms, an interactive map of the world of the films, and links to

the other prominent Tolkien sites. (Lyman, 2001) Now, this kind of detailed

website is a must have for any aspiring blockbuster.

The result of such close contact with a fan base allowed for a participatory

fandom to develop for

The Lord of the Rings

film trilogy – creating the cultural

phenomenon that it remains to this day.

Because Jackson made Tolkien fans feel like they had an influence on the

films, the fans felt more a part of the films than they would have otherwise. In

the end,

The Lord of the Rings

trilogy generated a combined $2.9 billion

worldwide on a budget of around $300 million, emerging as a massive financial

success. The films were each critically acclaimed, becoming comparable to

previous blockbusters

Titanic, Jurassic Park, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,

and the

original

Star Wars

trilogy.

With the Internet fast becoming a new medium with unique capabilities to

reach target audiences, studios began changing the campaign process to match

the evolving technology. While television remains the main component of any

campaign – a status it has retained since

Jaws

in 1975 – the Internet has given

studios and distributors new advantages and challenges.

One of the most lasting effects of the arrival of the Internet is how quickly

information can be shared. Where word-of-mouth, both positive and negative,

used to take at the very least a week to break or make a film, the Internet allowed

that timeframe to be cut down exponentially. (Marich, 113)

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Now, film critics and general viewers alike can share opinions faster than

ever, in as little as a few seconds. While this can be dangerous to a movie that

may not be high quality, the shareable nature of the Internet has also become a

great ally to studios and distributors. (Marich, 115)

While a majority of blockbuster marketing campaigns and tactics have

remained relatively the same since their introductions starting around forty years

ago, films since 1999 have begun to rely more heavily on new media, including

the Internet and other digital options.

However, the extent of the utilization of new media depends on whether a

film’s target audience can be easily reached through this medium. While

blockbusters have large marketing budgets to spend anywhere that studios desire,

smaller films – like

The Blair Witch Project

– or blockbusters geared toward a

media-savvy, younger demographic – like

The Hunger Games –

generally focus

on new media as it is accessible, cheaper, and skews younger. (Marich, 112)

From 2000 to 2005, studios and film marketers generally focused on a

film’s website as the main online marketing effort, updating it with new

information and content routinely until the film’s release – usually beginning at

least ten months before. As early as 2003, though, the Internet experienced a shift

with the arrival of social media. (Marich, 122)

With MySpace founded in 2003, Facebook beginning in 2004 and Twitter

soon to follow a year later, social media and heavily trafficked third party sites in

general were rapidly entering a period of popularity and importance. As of 2014,

Internet users currently spend one out of every four minutes online on a social

networking site. With over 1.23 billion monthly users worldwide on Facebook

alone as of January 2014 (

PR Newswire

, 2014) the audience is there. The key is to

create shareable, memorable content.

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2006 would produce one of the earliest examples of an interactive online

campaign for a film.

To promote the release of

The Da Vinci Code

starring Tom Hanks, Sony

Pictures created, in partnership with Grace Hill Media and Google, a series of

interactive puzzles, mirroring the puzzles that the characters in the film had to

solve. The result was hundreds of thousands of participants and earned media

coverage from

Good Morning America

Entertainment Tonight

, and

The Insider

The film would ultimately earn $218 and $758 million domestically and

worldwide, cementing the release of a lucrative though less successful sequel in

2009,

Angels and Demons

The following year in 2007, 20

Century Fox would create a secondary site

to help promote its hybrid animated and live action film

Alvin and the

Chipmunks

. The site titled munkyourself.com allowed users to make himself or

herself into an animated chipmunk. Participants could then share the finished

product with friends via email and social media. (Marich, 126) The film would

eventually gross $217 million, ranking ninth for the year at the domestic box

office. (Two successful sequels would follow in 2009 and 2011.)

2007 would also see the most intricate attempt at online film marketing

since

The Lord of the Rings

with Christopher Nolan’s

The Dark Knight

, with the

campaign going into effect over a year before its release. Mimicking the viral

nature of

The Blair Witch Project

, Warner Bros. created a series of websites

centered on themes from the film, including a website dedicated to the fictitious

political campaign for character Harvey Dent that featured shareable “I Believe

in Harvey Dent” posters. Another site titled whysoserious.com featured a teaser

trailer that heavily focused on Heath Ledger’s interpretation of DC comics villain

The Joker. Incorporating physical copies of “The Gotham Times”, the campaign

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included a real life, city-spanning scavenger hunt requiring teamwork of fans of

the series to unlock special content. (42 Entertainment, 2013)

By the end of the campaign, over 11 million unique participants from 75

countries had participated in the campaign, leading the film to become just the

fourth film to cross $1 billion globally and catapulting it into pop culture history.

By 2009, studios were vying for ambitious marketing campaigns for their

tent pole, blockbuster films. 20

Century Fox and James Cameron would launch

another in-depth campaign with their highest-grossing film of all time

Avatar

In August 2009, just five months before the film’s release in December,

Fox coordinated a mass release of materials pertaining to the highly anticipated

film. (Hampp, 2010)

On August 20, the studio released the official trailer to Apple, breaking

records when it streamed four million times in one day. The following day, Fox

showed sixteen minutes of exclusive footage to moviegoers in 100 IMAX 3D

theaters; Ubisoft debuted a trailer for the videogame based on the film; and

Mattel unveiled its slate of action figures inspired by the film’s characters. Fox

also successfully saturated multiple social websites, including sizable efforts on

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Youtube, and Flickr. (Mendoza, 2o1o) As of March

2015,

Avatar

has over 50 million “likes” on Facebook.

By December, the film’s dazzling special effects would speak for itself,

leading to the film becoming the first film to cross over $2 billion in box office

grosses worldwide. The groundbreaking motion-capture technology, reliance on

digital film, and impeccable 3D graphics would actually be instrumental in

theaters nationwide adopting screens and technology capable of accurately

working with digital and 3D technology. (

The Hollywood Reporter

, 2014)

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(For a closer look at the number one highest grossing films of all time, see

Appendix B)

Also in 2009, Warner Bros. further expanded on earlier tactics originated

with

The Dark Knight.

For

Terminator Salvation

, a reboot of the original

Terminator

trilogy, the studio created a viral website for Skynet, a fictitious

company central to the plots of the films. (Marich, 133) This method would be

repeated again for future blockbusters, with Universal channeling this most

recently. For its upcoming

Jurassic Park

reboot titled

Jurassic World

, Universal

created two interactive viral websites: one for Masrani Global – the corporation

behind reviving the park from the original trilogy – and one for the park itself.

The latter website offers an intricate view into the park, mimicking a real tourism

website and adding a realistic layer to the storytelling. (Baker-Whitelaw, 2015)

Returning to 2010 and 2011, three more revolutionary campaigns from

Disney Pixar’s

Toy Story 3

, Paramount’s

Super 8

, and 20

Century Fox’s

Rio

would

be put into effect.

With 2010’s

Toy Story 3

– a franchise spanning fifteen years – Disney Pixar

chose to create unique, nostalgia fueled viral videos to proliferate the Internet

through social media. The content included vintage themed commercials for Lots

o’ Huggin’ Bear (the villain from the film), an instant messaging chat with Buzz

Lightyear and Woody, interviews with Mattel’s Ken doll called “Groovin’ with

Ken” and his own advice series titled “Ken’s Dating Tips”. These creative

approaches along with a Facebook app that allowed for advance purchase of the

tickets generated buzz for the film, leading it to become the first animated film to

cross $1 billion. (Marich, 130)

2010 was a big year for Disney in general, as it announced that it’s 200

official Disney brand fan pages had accumulated over 100 million “likes” on

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Facebook since their inception just a year a before. (Marich, 131) As of March 2015,

the main Disney page has accumulated over 47 million “likes” alone.

In 2011, Paramount decided to execute a massive Twitter campaign for

Super 8

consisting of organizing 324 sneak previews with promoted Tweets just a

day before the film. The result was 100,000 tickets sold, $1 million in revenue, and

favorable word-of-mouth that helped lead the film to a domestic haul of $128

million. (McKee, 2011)

In a highly synergistic move, 20

Century Fox opted to cross-promote its

animated bird film

Rio

with Rovio’s enormously popular mobile app

Angry Birds

With both properties featuring and focusing on birds, the relationship was highly

natural and felt noninvasive to fans of the game. The crossover titled

Angry Birds

Rio

generated ten million downloads in its first week of release and seventy-five

million in the months to follow. This crossover helped push the film to $144 and

$485 million domestically and globally and helped buoy interest generating high

home video sales and leading to a successful sequel in 2014. (Marich, 133-135)

2012 would also prove to be a highly innovative year for the era of digital

and Internet marketing, specifically with films

Ted,

The Hunger Games,

and

The

Avengers

With

Ted

, Universal set up several ways for audiences to incorporate Ted –

the bawdy, animated teddy bear and main focal point of the film – including a

Talking Ted mobile app, a humorous blog, and technology to easily paste Ted

into a personal picture of the participant’s choosing. (Karpel, 2013)

Utilizing the raunchy humor of the titular character, the official Twitter

account of the film gained over 200,000 followers before the film was even

released. Likewise, the Facebook account for the film accumulated almost 7

million “likes” before the film’s release. Because of the favorable audience

76!

reception of the film, both accounts stand at 700,000 followers and 21 million

“likes”. (Karpel, 2013) The film ultimately grossed $218 and $549 million

domestically and globally, with a sequel planned for summer 2015.

In the same vein as

The Da Vinci Code

and

The Dark Knight

before it,

Lionsgate launched an intricate online campaign for

The Hunger Games

several

months before its November release. Also heavily focusing on Twitter and

Facebook, the official movie accounts encouraged fans of the wildly popular book

series to register for his or her “district” – an element key to the plot of the film –

after which participants could compete against one another in various tasks.

(Karpel, 2012)

Twitter and Tumblr accounts gave fans daily fashion advice, and a

YouTube channel was routinely updated with the latest production information.

Also incorporated into the campaigns for the rest of the films in the franchise,

teaser trailers mirroring propaganda from the film have been heavily utilized –

further creating a palpable atmosphere for the film that extends beyond the big

screen. (Graser, 2013)

Rounding out 2012 releases, Disney and Marvel began a very complex

marketing campaign for its record-setting release of

The Avengers

. In fact, the

release of that film was five years in the making. (Faw, 2012)

In 2008 beginning with the films

Iron Man

and

The Incredible Hulk,

the

Marvel Cinematic Universe stayed interconnected from both a marketing and

storyline standpoint for the next five years. Through small cameos and stingers

(bonus scenes after the credits of the films) other characters and films were

consistently hinted at, (Faw, 2012) demonstrating that these characters coexisted

in the same fictional universe.

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As for merchandising, Hasbro in partnership with Marvel began a slow

roll-out of the “Core Four” characters – Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, and Captain

America – beginning in 2008. By 2011, other Avengers Black Widow and Hawkeye

would be added to the mix, driving up hype for the film in 2012. (Faw, 2012)

By 2012, Marvel and Disney had five major blockbusters focused on

characters from

The Avengers

already released –

Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk,

Iron Man 2, Thor,

and

Captain America: The First Avenger –

essentially using the

previous successes of the films to sell

The Avengers

as the must-see event film of

the year. Despite having enormous exposure from the previous films, the studios

still heavily marketed

The Avengers

, using the sheer scope of the project as a

major selling point. (Kit, 2012)

Marvel also teamed up with Walmart in one of the biggest merchandizing

deals in the history of cinema with over 600

Avengers

themed products for sale

through the supermarket chain, including the Super Hero Augmented Reality

App that gives users exclusive content only unlockable when actually inside a

Walmart store. (Kit, 2012)

Marvel and Disney also focused on social media. In March 2012, a Facebook

game titled

Avengers Alliance

became available, boasting 1.2 million daily users

by the film’s release in May. (Faw, 2012)

The January before the release, key members of the cast and crew

including Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, and director Joss Wheddon held a

thirty minute live Twitter Q&A, becoming a worldwide “trending topic” and

generating enormous buzz. The chat also included a ten second teaser of the

thirty-second television spot used in the Super Bowl of that year. (Faw, 2012)

Overall, the various marketing tactics and previous goodwill established by

the earlier films led the film to gross over $1.5 billion worldwide, the third highest

78!

grossing of all time behind

Avatar

and

Titanic

. These enormous numbers

eventually lead into a massive multi-billion dollar film, television, and video

game franchise. (Marvel, 2015)

The most recent film seen to be a marketing smash hit came from Disney,

as it enters another period of success. Following the releases of crowd-pleasers

and female driven films

Tangled

and

Brave

– which grossed $592 and $539

million worldwide in 2010 and 2012 respectively – Walt Disney Animations

released

Frozen

in November 2013. (Box Office Mojo, H)

While the marketing was not necessarily groundbreaking, the strategy

featured elements tried-and-true from past blockbusters. Like

Titanic

, the film

featured award-winning songwriters and songstresses to sell two major songs

from the production; Tony Award winning writers Robert Lopez and Kristen

Anderson-Lopez penned all the lyrical songs for the film including “Do You Want

to Build a Snowman?” performed by TV actress-turned-film-star Kristen Bell and

“Let It Go” performed by Tony Award winning songstress Idina Menzel in the

film and pop star Demi Lovato for the pop single.

As of March 2015, the soundtrack has sold four million copies in the United

States alone and has spent thirteen non-consecutive weeks at the top of the

Billboard 200. “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” became a top forty hit, selling

over a million copies. (

Billboard,

2014)

“Let It Go” would be the main hit from the film. The two versions sold

over four million copies combined in the United States, with Lovato’s version

being a top forty hit and Menzel’s version becoming a top five hit. (

Billboard,

Idina Menzel)

The YouTube videos for both versions have racked up a combined 500

million views, becoming a pop culture sensation. In the year 2014 alone,

Frozen

79!

merchandise generated over one billion in sales, almost matching the 1.2 billion

worldwide gross of the film. Most notably,

Frozen

overturned a recent trend in

diminishing home video purchases, as the film sold 15 million digital, DVD, and

Blu-Ray versions in the months following its home release to the tune of $255

million generated for Disney. (Bulik, 2014)

While the film was not originally intended to be a franchise, Disney

recently announced a sequel, just days before a seven-minute short titled

Frozen

Fever

debuted before Disney’s live action reboot of

Cinderella

in March 2015. With

Cinderella

poised to become a blockbuster itself (it made almost $70 million in its

opening weekend), the relationship was a very natural one, mimicking the tie-ins

previously done by Disney’s Marvel Studios.

With thirty-four planned reboots, remakes, or sequels already released or

planned for release in 2015 – including additions to the

Star Wars

Jurassic Park,

Terminator, Mad Max,

James Bond, and

The Hunger Games

franchises – the new

age of the blockbuster and the blockbuster franchise is nowhere near slowing

down, though the road to success has not been as easy as Hollywood would lead

the masses to believe. (Busch, 2014)

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CHAPTER IV: THE BLOCKBUSTER ERA: ISSUES

FROM PAST TO PRESENT

While a majority of this journey into the world of the blockbuster has

centered on financial, critical, and popular triumphs, the blockbuster as a strategy

and as a genre is not foolproof.

Since 1975, many films aspiring to be blockbusters have utterly failed,

becoming known as “box office flops”. Other issues have also arisen in recent

years, such as pirating, rising ticket prices, increased competition from video-on-

demand and similar streaming services, and the recent domestic box office slump

experienced in 2014.

Box office flops – sometimes called box office bombs – are generally

described as blockbusters that never fulfilled the financial potential expected.

These films are generally from major studios, have big production and marketing

budgets, and oftentimes have famous stars, yet these films’ box office grosses fail

to exceed or match the actual costs of producing, advertising, and distributing.

So far, the core tenants of the box office formula (an intricate marketing

campaign – beginning months in advance and saturating the market in the days

before the wide release – comprised of multiple advertising mediums that focus

on the sellable, appealing elements of a film) have seemed to be foolproof. So

why do certain films fail where others succeed so spectacularly?

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The first example of the box office bomb comes as early as 1980 with

director Michael Cimino’s

Heaven’s Gate

. Just after the enormous success of

Jaws

in 1975 and the beginning of the

Star Wars

franchise in 1977, the utter failure of

Heaven’s Gate

sent shockwaves through Hollywood. (Robey, 2013)

While films had underperformed or underwhelmed before – 1963’s

Cleopatra

and 1964’s

The Fall of the Roman Empire

come to mind – never before

had a film failed on such a large scale. With a budget of $44 million,

Heaven’s

Gate

only managed to gross $3.5 million worldwide, which in today’s dollars

amounts to an estimated loss of up to $121 million. Subsequently, the result of the

failure led to studio United Artists collapsing and being absorbed into Metro-

Goldwyn-Mayer in 1981. (Robey, 2013)

However, the blockbuster strategy cannot be wholly attributed with the

failure of this film.

Heaven’s Gate

simply suffered from bad press and from being

a poorly received film in general. It would not be until the second phase of the

Blockbuster Era that the strategy would prove to fail beyond poor content.

All of the top five films with the greatest box office losses – when

adjusting for inflation – have occurred since 1995. Two of the most stunning

failures have occurred in the past five years during a period in which selling a

major film seems to be a well-understood, systematic process. (Ellar,

Los Angeles

Times

)

In 2011, Disney Animations released animated film

Mars Needs Moms

. On

the surface, this type of film seems to be the perfect fit for the blockbusters that

Disney typically releases. The film was animated and geared towards children (by

2011, this genre of the blockbuster was emerging as one of the most surefire) and

set in space – in the vein of the

Star Wars

franchise and

Avatar

. The film was even

82!

produced by Robert Zemeckis, the director of blockbusters like the

Back to the

Future

franchise from the eighties, 1994’s

Forrest Gump

, and 2000’s

Cast Away

Despite having all of these elements, with a $150 million production

budget and Disney behind the marketing to boot,

Mars Needs Moms

only

generated around $40 million worldwide, with estimated losses to the tune of $131

million (this number does not include marketing costs). It was also the first

animated film to flop on such a large scale. (Barnes, 2011)

However, just two years later and Universal would hold the distinction of

having the greatest flop of all time with samurai inspired

47 Ronin

. Starring

Keanu Reeves – previous star of the bankable

Matrix

franchise running from 1999

to 2003 – the film had a production budget to the tune of $225 million, with even

more spent on marketing. The film only managed to gross $151 million

worldwide, with estimated overall losses surmounting to $150 million. (Rich, 2013)

How could huge studios like Disney and Universal have such two major

flops in recent years – arguably during the heyday of the blockbuster? The

answer lies in both marketing and content.

The blockbuster strategy works best when coupled with a film that is at

least decent. In these three previous cases –

Heaven’s Gate

Mars Needs Moms

and

47 Ronin

– these films were inherently bad, both poorly received critically

and popularly.

Mars Needs Moms

and

Heaven’s Gate

both only managed scores of thirty

percent out of a possible one hundred among Top Critics on review aggregate

Rotten Tomatoes.

47 Ronin

fared even worse, only achieving a six percent rating.

In the case of

Mars

and

Ronin

, both films executed confusing marketing

campaigns that never clarified the plots, ineffectively selling the film to the

masses.

83!

The lesson here is that even a massive blockbuster campaign cannot save a

bad film, especially a campaign that cannot even manage to accurately market

the material. With ever-increasing obstacles facing the modern blockbuster and

the film industry in general, there is no time or money to be wasted when it

comes to filmmaking and marketing.

Since 1975 – the first year that the average movie ticket cost over $2 - the

cost of going to the movie theater has steadily increased, though more quickly in

recent years. In the twenty years following 1975, the average ticket only increased

by about $2.20, to $4.30 in 1995. However, by 1999 the average cost passed $5, and

by 2013, the average ticket costs more than $8. (Box Office Mojo, B)

While these rising costs can be attributed to the steady inflation of the US

Dollar since the early eighties (Prince, 21), this is also a result of exhibitors

charging more for theater amenities, such as 3D viewing.

In fact, 3D technology and 3D films have been on the rise since 2009,

spurred by the release of

Avatar

. (

The Hollywood Reporter

, 2014) In 2009,

according to the MPAA, just 3,269 screens out of 39,233 in the United States had 3D

capabilities. By 2013, the number of 3D screens had grown to 14,483. Because of the

expenses to install new technology, theaters – and distributors in a two-way deal –

can charge more for movie tickets in general, even if a ticket is not for a 3D film.

(MPAA, 2013)

The inflation that movie ticket prices have experienced since 1975 signal

implications that go beyond a strain on the average moviegoers’ wallet.

A singular question arises: can the “blockbusters” of the last fifteen years

be considered as such? Should the records be based on the overall amount of

individual tickets sold to see a film?

84!

Discussed in the first chapter, the modern top ten highest grossing films of

the domestic market is mostly full of movies released since 1997. (Box Office

Mojo, D) But, when adjusted for inflation, only one film from this period remains

in the top ten – and that is James Cameron’s

Titanic

, which still manages to fall

from second to fifth place.

Avatar

and

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

descend to

fourteenth and seventeenth places, respectively.

Avatar

actually falls thirteen

places from ranking number one. Similarly,

Marvel’s The Avengers

falls from

third all the way to twenty-seventh. (Box Office Mojo, B)

Are modern blockbusters truly blockbusters if they are buoyed by rising

ticket prices? Many would still say yes.

Regardless of inflation, today’s blockbusters are still earning a huge

amount of money, on a more consistent basis and in spite of facing much more

competition than their predecessors. The success stories are managing to

overcome threats from television, streaming, and digital, emerging from a film

market saturated to an unprecedented extent as record-breakers and record-

setters.

While the very early blockbusters and the blockbuster prototypes sold

more tickets, these films generally did not earn any money beyond the box office.

Today’s blockbusters have a much broader reach, commanding millions of

dollars from various ancillary markets – including an increasingly powerful

global market.

While the ever-lucrative global market, various ancillary markets, and a

growing dependence on tent pole, blockbuster franchises have ensured that

studios continue to capitalize on the blockbuster genre and strategy, the

85!

blockbuster – and the film industry in general – is facing obstacles never before

seen that could result in an industry drastically changed forever.

A. THE FUTURE OF THE BLOCKBUSTER

While the blockbuster enjoys its fortieth anniversary this year, coinciding

with the release of Steven Spielberg’s

Jaws

in 1975, it also is arguably on the brink

of another major shift – perhaps even on the verge of entering a Part Three of the

Blockbuster Era.

As discussed earlier, the blockbuster franchise has saturated the

contemporary market with huge, action-driven films featuring special effects,

spectacle and scope unseen in previous decades. To stand out in a film industry

that is increasingly becoming homogenous in content, studios are expending

millions of dollars on extensive, intricate marketing campaigns. Estimates reveal

that the average cost of marketing a typical studio film now numbers over $40

million, with the entire cost of the studio film approaching $100 million when

adding production costs. Blockbuster films can easily reach upwards of $200

million when adding in production expenses and domestic and global marketing

costs. (McClintock, 2014)

While this increase in prices could be offset by the increased ticket cost,

ticket sales in North America are recently declining. In fact, only eleven percent

of Americans saw a movie at least once a month in 2014, with many moviegoers

only going to the theater around six times that year. (MPAA, 2014)

In 2014, 1.27 billion tickets were sold compared to 1.5 billion in 2004.

(MPAA, 2014) The summer of 2014 was also the lowest grossing summer since

86!

2005, and had a twenty-two percent decline in box office gross compared to the

same period (May to August) in 2013. (Susman, 2014)

As domestic audiences continue to decline, studios set their sights overseas

where business continues to be booming. In 2009, the international box office

totaled $31.6 billion. By 2014, that number had reached $36.4 billion. In the same

timeframe, the domestic box office actually decreased by $200 million (from $10.6

to $10.4 billion). (MPAA, 2014)

With foreign audiences currently accounting for over seventy percent of

Hollywood box office receipts, content and marketing strategies will continue to

change, focusing on more culturally diverse topics, themes, and characters. This

shift can already be seen with recent successful releases.

In 2009, director Justin Lin revamped the

Fast and the Furious

film

franchise by featuring a much more ethnically diverse cast than the previous

entries. The films to follow would use the same formula, with each release

generating higher grosses than its predecessor. As of March 2015, the franchise is

the fifteenth highest grossing of all time, and with a highly anticipated entry due

in April, the franchise should continue to climb even higher. (The Numbers, 2015)

In 2014, a fourth entry in the

Transformers

franchise was released that

heavily incorporated China into the plot. In the emerging film market, the film

broke box office records previously set by

Avatar

in 2010, ultimately grossing over

$300 million in that nation alone. In comparison, the film grossed $245 million in

the United States and Canada. (Tartarglione, 2014)

Besides studios continuing to look overseas for new opportunities in the

wake of declining theater attendance stateside, other challenges have manifested

in recent years.

87!

As the Internet continues to hold enormous sway over how people interact

with their world, it also emerges as one of the biggest threats to the blockbuster

strategy since the genre’s inception in 1975. The Internet threatens to

permanently morph the film industry in two ways: illegal pirating and streaming

services.

Illegal pirating has been an issue since the dawn of home video in the late

seventies, though in previous decades they were “bootlegged” – illegally filmed or

copied editions. These products were much easier to trace, and the trade was more

difficult to break into.

However, because of the relative anonymity and wide scale use of the

Internet, online pirating is much more serious. Not only is it easier in the twenty-

first century – illegally downloading a film is as easy as a click away – but with

various online organizations that host illegal copies of films based overseas and

using hacked or remote servers, there is virtually no permanent way to stop the

various sites from making these illegal products available for the masses. (Bloom,

2015)

2014 would be the first year that a major film saw a diminished box office

gross because of illegal downloads. Three full weeks before the film was set to

release, a full version of Lionsgate’s

The Expendables 3

– a film featuring action

stars from blockbusters past like

Rocky

’s Sylvester Stallone and

Terminator

’s

Arnold Schwarzenegger – was released online. In just one week, the film was

already downloaded two million times; the film would eventually be downloaded

more than sixty million times across the globe. (Lang, 2014)

The result was a paltry $39 million gross by the end of its domestic run,

despite the first and second films in the franchise earning $103 and $85 million in

2010 and 2012 respectively.

The Expendables 3

would end its global run at $206

88!

million, almost $100 million less than the second film’s $305 million worldwide

haul. While some questioned if the film being pirated so early on actually led to

its box office woes, a recent study by Carnegie Mellon Universtiy revealed that if

a film leaks online before its wide release, it can expect to lose up to twenty

percent of potential revenue. (Lang, 2014)

Another threat from the Internet comes from alternative release windows

stimulated by video-on-demand and streaming services like iTunes, Amazon,

Google Play, and Netflix.

2014 also saw significant developments in this realm of the industry with

two films in specific,

Snowpiercer

and

The Interview

While many in the industry continue to argue that the current film release

strategy does not complement an increasingly technological and fast-paced

society,

Snowpiercer

is the first major film to directly challenge the release

window – specifically, the typical 90 days for a film to move from theaters to

home video. (Pomerantz, 2014)

Distributed by The Weinstein Company, the film was a joint English and

South Korean venture produced on a budget of $40 million. Starring Chris Evans

(popularly known as Captain America from the Marvel Cinematic Universe) the

film focused on apocalyptic, dystopian themes and was set for a release date in

July; on the surface, the film had all the makings of a blockbuster.

On the opening weekend, the film was given a nationwide release that

included instant access on video-on-demand and just eight theaters. Eventually,

the film would reach 356 theaters, generating just $4.6 million domestically.

However, the film was not deemed a box office flop. (Pomerantz, 2014)

While many in the industry felt that the film would have performed better

with a more typical release strategy, The Weinstein Company saved millions of

89!

dollars in advertising by opting against the norm and instead relying on positive

word-of-mouth. Ultimately, the film would gross $87 million from the global box

office (Box Office Mojo, H) and around $8.3 million from on-demand services, of

which The Weinstein Company sees a higher profit. (Pomerantz, 2014)

Similarly, Sony’s

The Interview

, a comedy

starring Seth Rogen and James

Franco, generated enormous press when controversial plot details involving

assassinating the dictator of North Korea were revealed. After an online hacking

attack launched on Sony in the weeks before the film’s December 25, 2014, release

resulted in thousands of documents being illegally distributed on the Internet,

leaking sensitive information. After the same perpetrators made threats against

moviegoers, most of the major nation theater chains pulled the film from their

release schedules in fear.

Ultimately, the film was only shown in around 581 theaters, generating just

$6 million from box office grosses. Even so, the film was also released on video-

on-demand services in the same period of time, leading to an unprecedented $40

million generated from this medium by the end of January 2015. While the film

ultimately cost around $75 million to produce and market, Sony was still

genuinely surprised by the numbers generated from its deals with the major

streaming services. (Lang, 2015) Still, many expect similar, less extreme release

strategies in the near future. (Faunghder, 2014)

While the streaming services can be valuable allies to the studios as seen

with

The Interview

, some are also beginning to emerge as potential threats. As

audiences continue to choose to stay home and binge-watch television shows and

available films on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and the like, these services are also

venturing out into original film production and accompanying unique release

strategies. (Regalado, 2014)

90!

In recent months, Netflix has announced a series of deals that have

increasingly left exhibitors and studios feeling uneasy.

For one, the company purchased rights to two films, awards contender and

Idris Elba vehicle

Beasts of No Nation

and

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II:

The Green Legend

. – the sequel to 2000’s hit

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

which grossed over $215 million worldwide. Netflix also announced that both

films would be given limited theatrical releases coinciding with their streaming

releases, further cementing the recent trend seen with releasing potentially big

films this way. (McClintock, 2015)

Netflix has also recently revealed a four-film deal with comedic star Adam

Sandler, a slate of documentaries with Leonardo DiCaprio, and four pictures with

filmmakers Jay and Mark Duplass, though these original films will not be given

theatrical releases.

Amazon also plans to produce or acquire eight to twelve films per year,

though this company plans to release the films in theaters first with exclusive

early viewings for Amazon Prime users as early as eight weeks after release.

(McClintock, 2015)

While all of these options are driving customers away from the theater and

back home, many in the industry suggest other methods to bring viewers back

into cinemas.

Two of the most notable contributions to this conversation come from an

article director Christopher Nolan penned for

The Wall Street Journal

and a

special feature done by

The Hollywood Reporter

concerning the future of the

film industry from the viewpoint of various experts.

While both articles point out different potential scenarios, both agree that

studios and exhibitors must work together to continually revolutionize the

91!

filmmaking processes and theater technology. This is necessary to once again

create an atmosphere and viewing experience that cannot be replicated at home,

which has occurred as home theater technology has expanded in recent years to

include surround sound and 3D technology. (Nolan, 2014)

Theaters need to become more innovative and experimental to create

more of an immersive experience for audience members, and with wider

capabilities available with theaters, films will evolve to take advantage of new

theater amenities.

Some new features are already in the works, including wrap-around

screens from Barco, a Belgian digital cinema projector manufacturer, and 360-

degree dome-shaped screens from Avatron Development USA. Douglas

Trumbull, a video effects expert with a career spanning as far back as Stanley

Kubrick’s 1968 classic

2001: A Space Odyssey

, has also experimented with a new

method of showing films called the MAGI process. This process shows frames of a

film at such high speeds that the movie ends up feeling more like a window into

another world than just a screen. (

The Hollywood Reporter

, 2014)

Regardless of what the future brings, the blockbuster is here to stay,

though it may be significantly different from the trailblazers of yesteryear in

technology, content, and strategy.

92!

CHAPTER V: FINAL THOUGHTS

Originating with Steven Spielberg’s

Jaws

in 1975 and George Lucas’

Star

Wars

franchise beginning in 1977, the blockbuster film would blaze onto the

scene, effectively transforming American cinema for forty years and counting.

The blockbuster would continuously evolve along with technology and changing

culture into a cinematic juggernaut, ultimately emerging as a genre that is a

cornerstone of modern film.

By the time of James Cameron’s

Avatar

in 2009 and

Marvel’s The

Avengers

in 2012, the blockbuster as a strategy and genre would be formulaic,

spectacular, and immense – where the art and nuances of filmmaking intersects

with the extravagance and excess of business and marketing.

Fueled by evolving and revolutionary marketing tactics, the blockbuster

would reach new monetary and cultural heights as the decades passed. What were

once mere marketing tactics would become perfected tools of persuasion, driving

films into grosses reaching into the billions. The saturated wide release that was

so unprecedented for 1975’s

Jaws

is now not only a mainstay for an aspiring

blockbuster but also for most studio films in general.

93!

As evidenced by the sheer number of film franchises appearing in the past

fifteen years, almost every film that enjoys monetary success is eventually joined

by a sequel, often becoming a full-fledged franchise in the same vein as George

Lucas’

Star Wars

and Steven Spielberg’s

Indiana Jones

Despite increased competition and overcrowding in the domestic film

market, blockbusters still demand and attract extensive promotional partnerships

with major brands, further proliferating into all aspects of popular culture. The

ancillary markets – television, home video, the global box office, and the Internet

and digital – continue to be boons to film marketers, constantly offering new

opportunities for films to reach their audiences in affecting, interesting ways.

The blockbuster has transcended being just a film or a clever business

strategy. It has emerged as a persuasive pop culture force, with the film industry

enjoying attendance levels that outpace all other similar levels of entertainment

combined – including major league sports and theme parks – and has maintained

its prominence even in the wake of the domestic downturn of 2014. (MPAA, 2014)

When boiled down to its essence, the blockbuster is the result of

revolutionary, daring minds. As the men behind

Jaws

Star

Wars

Indiana

Jones

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

, and

Jurassic Park

, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas

are the uncontested masters of the Blockbuster Era. Their creativity, discipline,

and ingenuity inspired generations of filmmakers and moviegoers to come,

resulting in the high-concept, bombastic, and increasingly layered fare that have

become staples of the film industry in recent years and continue to dazzle

audiences worldwide.

Others who have expounded and enhanced the methods pioneered by

Spielberg and Lucas deserve credit as well. Peter Jackson, Alan Horn, James

Cameron, and Christopher Nolan have all played pivotal roles in the

94!

development of the blockbuster, cementing the genre as an art in itself. With

The

Lord of the Rings, Titanic, Avatar,

and

The Dark Knight

trilogy

between them,

Jackson, Cameron, and Nolan have directed some of the highest grossing and

most celebrated films of all time. Horn, as former President and COO of Warner

Bros. and current Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, has overseen the releases of

recent blockbuster bastions, such as the

Harry Potter

franchise,

The Hobbit

and

The Dark Knight

trilogies,

Frozen

, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While these figures have been critical in the development of the genre, the

various staff of the studios and distributors behind these films have played the

most important roles of all: generating awareness. Without film marketing,

exposure and awareness would never have reached a great enough point to allow

films of this scope to be created in the first place. Because of marketing and the

tent pole strategy, films continue to attract crowds large enough to fund entire

studios for a financial year. The excess funds marketing can potentially generate

justify any increasing costs.

Because of film marketing, audiences can have escapist blockbusters, and

because of the tent pole strategy, audiences can also have nuanced, small-scale

dramas, comedies, and awards contenders.

While the film industry and the blockbuster may be on the verge of

undergoing drastic changes, one thing is certain: as long as there are great minds

like the luminaries mentioned throughout, whatever the industry invents next is

bound to be as thrilling as traveling at warp speed in the Millennium Falcon, as

heartrending as embarking on a doomed voyage with the RMS Titanic, and as

breathtaking as an expedition into the jungles of Pandora.

95!

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

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4,5($

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A%D%F$$

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cR39,-8+)*$8$Y,5($"35]$*;2#8**)9$"3)$\,55,"3$+02";/0$8$2)62)5)8*)$

Source: Box Office Mojo

Appendix A shows the films to cross $1 billion in worldwide grosses in

chronological order. Both

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

(1999)

and

Jurassic Park

(1993)

achieved this feat in a subsequent theatrical wide rerelease in

the respective year listed above.

96!

APPENDIX B

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>)82$"Y$

<)5)8*)$

4,5($

>)82*$"Y$

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>)82*$

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_,2+0$"Y$8$e8+,"3$

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IE$

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1939$

Gone$with$the$Wind*$

1971$

27$

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Z8W*$

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QD!DP$!0)$QT+286!)22)*+2,85$

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Ec$

V,39,-8+)*$8$2)62)5)8*)$\2";/0+$+0)$Y,5($\8-=$+"$3;(\)2$"3)$

c$*"$Y82$

Sources: Six Degrees of Film, The Numbers, Box Office Mojo

Appendix B shows the number one highest grossing films of all time,

including their release years and the amount of time they held the record. So far,

only ten films have been in the number one spot since the beginning of the film

industry in 1915.

97!

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