'Jaws' at 50: The Shark That Changed Movies Forever
Half a Century Later Jaws Still Bites Last spring, our Cinema Club kicked off with Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps —a tight little thriller that showed us the roots of cinematic suspense. For our second screening, our “summer edition,” we went in a very different direction: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975). And really, what better way to mark the movie’s fiftieth anniversary than by revisiting the film that didn’t just terrify beachgoers but transformed Hollywood itself? When Jaws opened in 1975, it redefined what a movie release could look like. Before then, summer was considered a slow season for studios. Universal flipped the script with a wide release, heavy national advertising and a marketing blitz that built anticipation in a way no film had done before. The result was staggering success and a new model: the “su...