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Blockbuster (entertainment)

January 01, 1970

A blockbuster is a work of entertainment—typically used to describe a feature film produced by a major film studio, but also other media—that is highly popular and financially successful. The term has also come to refer to any large-budget production intended for "blockbuster" status, aimed at mass markets with associated merchandising, sometimes on a scale that meant the financial fortunes of a film studio or a distributor could depend on it.

Queue for Gone with the Wind in Pensacola, Florida (1947)

Etymology edit

The term began to appear in the American press in the early 1940s,[1] referring to the blockbuster bombs, aerial munitions capable of destroying a whole block of buildings.[2] Its first known use in reference to films was in May 1943, when advertisements in Variety[3] and Motion Picture Herald described the RKO film, Bombardier, as "The block-buster of all action-thrill-service shows!" Another trade advertisement in 1944 boasted that the war documentary, With the Marines at Tarawa, "hits the heart like a two ton blockbuster."

Several theories have been put forward for the origin of the term in a film context. One explanation pertains to the practice of "block booking" whereby a studio would sell a package of films to theaters, rather than permitting them to select which films they wanted to exhibit. However, this practice was outlawed in 1948 before the term became common parlance; while pre-1948 high-grossing big-budget spectacles may be retroactively labelled "blockbusters," this is not how they were known at the time. Another explanation is that trade publications would often advertise the popularity of a film by including illustrations showing long queues often extending around the block, but in reality the term was never used in this way. The term was actually first coined by publicists who drew on readers' familiarity with the blockbuster bombs, drawing an analogy with the bomb's huge impact. The trade press subsequently appropriated the term as short-hand for a film's commercial potential. Throughout 1943 and 1944 the term was applied to films such as Bataan, No Time for Love and Brazil.[4]

History edit

Golden Age era edit

The term fell out of usage in the aftermath of World War II but was revived in 1948 by Variety in an article about big budget films. By the early 1950s the term had become standardised within the film industry and the trade press to denote a film that was large in spectacle, scale and cost, that would go on to achieve a high gross. In December 1950 the Daily Mirror predicted that Samson and Delilah would be "a box office block buster", and in November 1951 Variety described Quo Vadis as "a b.o. blockbuster [...] right up there with Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind for boxoffice performance [...] a super-spectacle in all its meaning".[4]

According to Stephen Prince, Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai had a "racing, powerful narrative engine, breathtaking pacing, and sense-assaulting visual style" (what he calls a "kinesthetic cinema" approach to "action filmmaking and exciting visual design") that was "the clearest precursor" and became "the model for" the "visceral" Hollywood blockbuster "brand of moviemaking" that emerged in the 1970s. According to Prince, Kurosawa became "a mentor figure" to a generation of emerging American filmmakers who went on to develop the Hollywood blockbuster format in the 1970s, such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.[5]

Blockbuster era edit

1970s edit

In 1975, the usage of "blockbuster" for films coalesced around Steven Spielberg's Jaws. It was perceived as a new cultural phenomenon: fast-paced, exciting entertainment, inspiring interest and conversation beyond the theatre (which would later be called "buzz"), and repeated viewings.[6] The film is regarded as the first film of the "blockbuster era", and founded the blockbuster film genre.[7] Two years later, Star Wars expanded on the success of Jaws, setting box office records and enjoying a theatrical run that lasted more than a year.[8] After the success of Jaws and Star Wars, many Hollywood producers attempted to create similar "event" films with wide commercial appeal, and film companies began green-lighting increasingly large-budget films, and relying extensively on massive advertising blitzes leading up to their theatrical release. These two films were the prototypes for the "summer blockbuster" trend,[9] in which major film studios and distributors planned their annual marketing strategy around a big release by July 4.[10]

1980s–1990s edit

The next fifteen years saw a number of high-quality blockbusters released including the likes of Alien (1979) and its sequel, Aliens (1986), the first three Indiana Jones films (1981, 1984 and 1989), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Ghostbusters (1984), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), the Back to the Future trilogy (1985, 1989 and 1990), the Steven Spielberg-produced An American Tail (1986), Top Gun (1986), Die Hard (1988), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Batman (1989) and its sequel Batman Returns (1992), The Little Mermaid (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Lion King (1994) and Toy Story (1995).[11][12][13][14][15]

21st century edit

Some examples of summer blockbusters from the 2000s include Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), The Da Vinci Code (2006), Transformers (2007) and Iron Man (2008)[16]—all of which founded successful franchises—and originals like The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and Pixar's Finding Nemo (2003), Wall-E (2008) and Up (2009).[17] The superhero genre saw renewed interest with X-Men (2000), Spider-Man (2002), Batman Begins (2005) and its sequel The Dark Knight (2008) all proving to be very popular.[18]

Blockbusters in the 2010s include Inception (2010), Despicable Me (2010), Ted (2012), The Conjuring (2013), Frozen (2013),[19] Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and Wonder Woman (2017). Snowpiercer (2014) proved to be the rare example of an international blockbuster that did not perform well in the North American market. Several established franchises continued to spawn successful entries with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) and Pixar's Toy Story 3 (2010) and Incredibles 2 (2018) among the highlights. Several older franchises were successfully resurrected by Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Jurassic World (2015), Man of Steel (2013), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and its sequel War for the Planet of the Apes (2017). The most successful franchise of the decade was arguably Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe, particularly The Avengers series.[20]

The "intellectual blockbuster" is a collocation that feature plots that are puzzles and/or nonlinear narratives. David Fear, writing for Rolling Stone, considers Christopher Nolan's Inception an example.[21] Novelist D. Harlan Wilson also applied the term to Steven Spielberg's Minority Report.[22] Other examples include Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity,[23] Alex Garland's Civil War[24] and James Mangold's Logan.[25]

Blockbusters in the 2020s include Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,[26] The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Barbie (each from 2023).[27][28]

Criticism edit

Eventually, the focus on creating blockbusters grew so intense that a backlash occurred, with some critics and film-makers decrying the prevalence of a "blockbuster mentality",[29] lamenting the death of the author-driven, "more artistic" small-scale films of the New Hollywood era. This view is taken, for example, by film journalist Peter Biskind, who wrote that all studios wanted was another Jaws, and as production costs rose, they were less willing to take risks, and therefore based blockbusters on the "lowest common denominators" of the mass market.[30] In his 2006 book The Long Tail, Chris Anderson talks about blockbuster films, stating that a society that is hit-driven, and makes way and room for only those films that are expected to be a hit, is in fact a limited society.[31] In 1998, writer David Foster Wallace posited that films are subject to an inverse cost and quality law.[32]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Google Ngram Viewer". books.google.com. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  2. ^ . Oxford Dictionaries | English. Archived from the original on July 30, 2012. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  3. ^ "Advertisement for the film "Bombardier"". Variety. May 12, 1943. pp. 14–15.
  4. ^ a b Hall, Sheldon (2014). "Pass the ammunition : a short etymology of "Blockbuster"" (PDF). Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  5. ^ Prince, Stephen (6 November 2015). "Kurosawa's international legacy". In Davis, Blair; Anderson, Robert; Walls, Jan (eds.). Rashomon Effects: Kurosawa, Rashomon and their legacies. Routledge. p. 132. ISBN 978-1-317-57464-4. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  6. ^ Tom Shone: Blockbuster (2004). London, Simon & Schuster UK. ISBN 0-7432-6838-5. See pp. 27–40.
  7. ^ Neale, Steve. "Hollywood Blockbusters: Historical Dimensions." Ed. Julien Stinger. Hollywood Blockbusters. London: Routeledge, 2003. pp. 48–50. Print.
  8. ^ "Celebrating the Original STAR WARS on its 35th Anniversary". cinematreasures.org. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  9. ^ Gray, Tim (2015-06-18). "'Jaws' 40th Anniversary: How Steven Spielberg's Movie Created the Summer Blockbuster". Variety. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  10. ^ Shone (2004), Chapter 1.
  11. ^ "Did 'Jaws' and 'Star Wars' Ruin Hollywood?". Ross Douthat. 22 June 2010. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  12. ^ The Circle Of Life: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About The Lion King (1994)|Screen Rant
  13. ^ Toys Are the Story on Holiday Weekend:Disney’s ‘Toy Story’ is Thanksgiving’s big moneymaker. The animated film could propel the five days to a record $152 million in ticket sales. - Los Angeles Times
  14. ^ Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Museum of the Moving Image
  15. ^ A Fievel Revival: The 35th Anniversary of "An American Tail"|Cartoon Research
  16. ^ Don't Blame Barbie and Ken for Killing the Movies - And Don't Blame IP - IPWatchdog.com
  17. ^ Summer Blockbusters from the 2000s: 'Gladiator', 'Pirates of the Caribbean', 'Spidr-Man' and More|A.Frame
  18. ^ "Summer Blockbusters That Defined the 2000s". CBR. July 22, 2020.
  19. ^ 10 Harsh Realities Of Rewatching Frozen, 10 Years Later - ScreenRant
  20. ^ "Our 25 Favourite Blockbusters of the 2010s". Gizmodo Australia. July 13, 2020.
  21. ^ Fear, David (July 18, 2020). "'Inception' at 10: Is It the Ultimate Christopher Nolan Movie?". Rolling Stone. Retrieved April 8, 2024.
  22. ^ Wilson, D. Harlan. "Minority Report". Dharlanwilson.com. Retrieved April 8, 2024.
  23. ^ Sachs, Ben (October 2, 2013). "In Gravity, George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are lost in space". Chicago Reader. Retrieved April 8, 2024.
  24. ^ Civil War Review:Alex Garland’s Electrifying War Story Is An Intellectual Blockbuster Triumph|CINEMABLEND
  25. ^ Bui, Hoai-Tran (June 26, 2017). "'War For The Planet Of The Apes' Is A Brilliant Blockbuster Limited By Its Worship Of Genre". /Film. Retrieved April 8, 2024.
  26. ^ Weekend Animated Box-Office Battle: It’s Sony’s ‘Spider-Verse’ versus Pixar’s ‘Elemental’|Animation Magazine
  27. ^ Super Mario Bros. Wonder designers first Mario game since its blockbuster movie - WBUR
  28. ^ ‘Barbie’ Becomes Top-Grossing Movie of 2023 Domestically, Global to Soon Follow - The Hollywood Reporter
  29. ^ Stringer, Julian (June 15, 2003). Movie Blockbusters. Psychology Press. p. 108. ISBN 9780415256087 – via Google Books.
  30. ^ Peter Biskind: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. Simon and Schuster, 1998.
  31. ^ Anderson, Chris. (PDF). Chris Anderson. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 5, 2010. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
  32. ^ Foster Wallace, David (November 6, 2012). Both Flesh and Not. New York: Little Brown & Company. ISBN 978-0316182379.

External links edit

 
Look up blockbuster in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

January 01, 1970
blockbuster, entertainment, blockbuster, work, entertainment, typically, used, describe, feature, film, produced, major, film, studio, also, other, media, that, highly, popular, financially, successful, term, also, come, refer, large, budget, production, inten. A blockbuster is a work of entertainment typically used to describe a feature film produced by a major film studio but also other media that is highly popular and financially successful The term has also come to refer to any large budget production intended for blockbuster status aimed at mass markets with associated merchandising sometimes on a scale that meant the financial fortunes of a film studio or a distributor could depend on it Queue for Gone with the Wind in Pensacola Florida 1947 Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 2 1 Golden Age era 2 2 Blockbuster era 2 2 1 1970s 2 2 2 1980s 1990s 2 2 3 21st century 3 Criticism 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksEtymology editThe term began to appear in the American press in the early 1940s 1 referring to the blockbuster bombs aerial munitions capable of destroying a whole block of buildings 2 Its first known use in reference to films was in May 1943 when advertisements in Variety 3 and Motion Picture Herald described the RKO film Bombardier as The block buster of all action thrill service shows Another trade advertisement in 1944 boasted that the war documentary With the Marines at Tarawa hits the heart like a two ton blockbuster Several theories have been put forward for the origin of the term in a film context One explanation pertains to the practice of block booking whereby a studio would sell a package of films to theaters rather than permitting them to select which films they wanted to exhibit However this practice was outlawed in 1948 before the term became common parlance while pre 1948 high grossing big budget spectacles may be retroactively labelled blockbusters this is not how they were known at the time Another explanation is that trade publications would often advertise the popularity of a film by including illustrations showing long queues often extending around the block but in reality the term was never used in this way The term was actually first coined by publicists who drew on readers familiarity with the blockbuster bombs drawing an analogy with the bomb s huge impact The trade press subsequently appropriated the term as short hand for a film s commercial potential Throughout 1943 and 1944 the term was applied to films such as Bataan No Time for Love and Brazil 4 History editGolden Age era edit The term fell out of usage in the aftermath of World War II but was revived in 1948 by Variety in an article about big budget films By the early 1950s the term had become standardised within the film industry and the trade press to denote a film that was large in spectacle scale and cost that would go on to achieve a high gross In December 1950 the Daily Mirror predicted that Samson and Delilah would be a box office block buster and in November 1951 Variety described Quo Vadis as a b o blockbuster right up there with Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind for boxoffice performance a super spectacle in all its meaning 4 According to Stephen Prince Akira Kurosawa s 1954 film Seven Samurai had a racing powerful narrative engine breathtaking pacing and sense assaulting visual style what he calls a kinesthetic cinema approach to action filmmaking and exciting visual design that was the clearest precursor and became the model for the visceral Hollywood blockbuster brand of moviemaking that emerged in the 1970s According to Prince Kurosawa became a mentor figure to a generation of emerging American filmmakers who went on to develop the Hollywood blockbuster format in the 1970s such as Steven Spielberg George Lucas Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola 5 Blockbuster era edit 1970s edit In 1975 the usage of blockbuster for films coalesced around Steven Spielberg s Jaws It was perceived as a new cultural phenomenon fast paced exciting entertainment inspiring interest and conversation beyond the theatre which would later be called buzz and repeated viewings 6 The film is regarded as the first film of the blockbuster era and founded the blockbuster film genre 7 Two years later Star Wars expanded on the success of Jaws setting box office records and enjoying a theatrical run that lasted more than a year 8 After the success of Jaws and Star Wars many Hollywood producers attempted to create similar event films with wide commercial appeal and film companies began green lighting increasingly large budget films and relying extensively on massive advertising blitzes leading up to their theatrical release These two films were the prototypes for the summer blockbuster trend 9 in which major film studios and distributors planned their annual marketing strategy around a big release by July 4 10 1980s 1990s edit The next fifteen years saw a number of high quality blockbusters released including the likes of Alien 1979 and its sequel Aliens 1986 the first three Indiana Jones films 1981 1984 and 1989 E T the Extra Terrestrial 1982 Ghostbusters 1984 Beverly Hills Cop 1984 the Back to the Future trilogy 1985 1989 and 1990 the Steven Spielberg produced An American Tail 1986 Top Gun 1986 Die Hard 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit 1988 Batman 1989 and its sequel Batman Returns 1992 The Little Mermaid 1989 The Hunt for Red October 1990 The Lion King 1994 and Toy Story 1995 11 12 13 14 15 21st century edit Some examples of summer blockbusters from the 2000s include Pirates of the Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl 2003 The Da Vinci Code 2006 Transformers 2007 and Iron Man 2008 16 all of which founded successful franchises and originals like The Day After Tomorrow 2004 and Pixar s Finding Nemo 2003 Wall E 2008 and Up 2009 17 The superhero genre saw renewed interest with X Men 2000 Spider Man 2002 Batman Begins 2005 and its sequel The Dark Knight 2008 all proving to be very popular 18 Blockbusters in the 2010s include Inception 2010 Despicable Me 2010 Ted 2012 The Conjuring 2013 Frozen 2013 19 Edge of Tomorrow 2014 and Wonder Woman 2017 Snowpiercer 2014 proved to be the rare example of an international blockbuster that did not perform well in the North American market Several established franchises continued to spawn successful entries with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 2011 X Men Days of Future Past 2014 Spider Man Homecoming 2017 Mission Impossible Fallout 2018 and Pixar s Toy Story 3 2010 and Incredibles 2 2018 among the highlights Several older franchises were successfully resurrected by Mad Max Fury Road 2015 Jurassic World 2015 Man of Steel 2013 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 2014 and its sequel War for the Planet of the Apes 2017 The most successful franchise of the decade was arguably Disney s Marvel Cinematic Universe particularly The Avengers series 20 The intellectual blockbuster is a collocation that feature plots that are puzzles and or nonlinear narratives David Fear writing for Rolling Stone considers Christopher Nolan s Inception an example 21 Novelist D Harlan Wilson also applied the term to Steven Spielberg s Minority Report 22 Other examples include Alfonso Cuaron s Gravity 23 Alex Garland s Civil War 24 and James Mangold s Logan 25 Blockbusters in the 2020s include Spider Man Across the Spider Verse 26 The Super Mario Bros Movie and Greta Gerwig s adaptation of Barbie each from 2023 27 28 Criticism editEventually the focus on creating blockbusters grew so intense that a backlash occurred with some critics and film makers decrying the prevalence of a blockbuster mentality 29 lamenting the death of the author driven more artistic small scale films of the New Hollywood era This view is taken for example by film journalist Peter Biskind who wrote that all studios wanted was another Jaws and as production costs rose they were less willing to take risks and therefore based blockbusters on the lowest common denominators of the mass market 30 In his 2006 book The Long Tail Chris Anderson talks about blockbuster films stating that a society that is hit driven and makes way and room for only those films that are expected to be a hit is in fact a limited society 31 In 1998 writer David Foster Wallace posited that films are subject to an inverse cost and quality law 32 See also edit nbsp Film portal AAA video game industry Box office Box office bomb Classical Hollywood cinema Four quadrant movie List of highest grossing openings for films List of highest grossing films Megamusical Oscar season Sleeper hit BarbenheimerReferences edit Google Ngram Viewer books google com Retrieved 2018 01 09 blockbuster Definition of blockbuster in English by Oxford Dictionaries Oxford Dictionaries English Archived from the original on July 30 2012 Retrieved 2018 01 09 Advertisement for the film Bombardier Variety May 12 1943 pp 14 15 a b Hall Sheldon 2014 Pass the ammunition a short etymology of Blockbuster PDF Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive Retrieved 25 April 2018 Prince Stephen 6 November 2015 Kurosawa s international legacy In Davis Blair Anderson Robert Walls Jan eds Rashomon Effects Kurosawa Rashomon and their legacies Routledge p 132 ISBN 978 1 317 57464 4 Retrieved 21 April 2022 Tom Shone Blockbuster 2004 London Simon amp Schuster UK ISBN 0 7432 6838 5 See pp 27 40 Neale Steve Hollywood Blockbusters Historical Dimensions Ed Julien Stinger Hollywood Blockbusters London Routeledge 2003 pp 48 50 Print Celebrating the Original STAR WARS on its 35th Anniversary cinematreasures org Retrieved 2018 01 09 Gray Tim 2015 06 18 Jaws 40th Anniversary How Steven Spielberg s Movie Created the Summer Blockbuster Variety Retrieved 2018 01 09 Shone 2004 Chapter 1 Did Jaws and Star Wars Ruin Hollywood Ross Douthat 22 June 2010 Retrieved 2018 01 09 The Circle Of Life 10 Behind The Scenes Facts About The Lion King 1994 Screen Rant Toys Are the Story on Holiday Weekend Disney s Toy Story is Thanksgiving s big moneymaker The animated film could propel the five days to a record 152 million in ticket sales Los Angeles Times Who Framed Roger Rabbit Museum of the Moving Image A Fievel Revival The 35th Anniversary of An American Tail Cartoon Research Don t Blame Barbie and Ken for Killing the Movies And Don t Blame IP IPWatchdog com Summer Blockbusters from the 2000s Gladiator Pirates of the Caribbean Spidr Man and More A Frame Summer Blockbusters That Defined the 2000s CBR July 22 2020 10 Harsh Realities Of Rewatching Frozen 10 Years Later ScreenRant Our 25 Favourite Blockbusters of the 2010s Gizmodo Australia July 13 2020 Fear David July 18 2020 Inception at 10 Is It the Ultimate Christopher Nolan Movie Rolling Stone Retrieved April 8 2024 Wilson D Harlan Minority Report Dharlanwilson com Retrieved April 8 2024 Sachs Ben October 2 2013 In Gravity George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are lost in space Chicago Reader Retrieved April 8 2024 Civil War Review Alex Garland s Electrifying War Story Is An Intellectual Blockbuster Triumph CINEMABLEND Bui Hoai Tran June 26 2017 War For The Planet Of The Apes Is A Brilliant Blockbuster Limited By Its Worship Of Genre Film Retrieved April 8 2024 Weekend Animated Box Office Battle It s Sony s Spider Verse versus Pixar s Elemental Animation Magazine Super Mario Bros Wonder designers first Mario game since its blockbuster movie WBUR Barbie Becomes Top Grossing Movie of 2023 Domestically Global to Soon Follow The Hollywood Reporter Stringer Julian June 15 2003 Movie Blockbusters Psychology Press p 108 ISBN 9780415256087 via Google Books Peter Biskind Easy Riders Raging Bulls How the Sex Drugs And Rock N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood Simon and Schuster 1998 Anderson Chris The Long Tail PDF Chris Anderson Archived from the original PDF on December 5 2010 Retrieved April 20 2011 Foster Wallace David November 6 2012 Both Flesh and Not New York Little Brown amp Company ISBN 978 0316182379 External links edit nbsp Look up blockbuster in Wiktionary the free dictionary All Time Box Office Domestic Grosses at Box Office Mojo Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Blockbuster entertainment amp oldid 1221223829 Blockbuster films, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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