The Action Horror Blockbuster On Peacock Everyone Must Watch
To a typical member of Gen Z or Generation Alpha, 1975’s Jaws seems like a rather banal movie, and many don’t know what makes the movie so great simply because they don’t understand its significance in the history of cinematography. But the truth is that Jaws is a super important movie and one that we highly recommend to anyone interested in the art of film and filmography.
Jaws Defined The Shark Movie
Released in 1975, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws followed Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brodey on a hunt for a man-eating great white shark, with the help of a marine biologist portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss, and a professional shark hunter portrayed by Robert Shaw. The story opens with an unseen monster attacking beachgoers at the summer resort town, prompting the hunt, while the local politician attempts to cover the entire thing up and declares the beach safe in an attempt to maintain profits.
A Simple Plot Is All It Needed
We won’t dive any further into the story, but the premise of Jaws is basically everything you’d expect from a typical shark movie—whose popularity significantly declined before The Meg was released—the killer shark approaches the beach, snacks a bit, and experienced shark hunters with tragic backstories engage in a monster hunt. So, why is Jaws, a seemingly banal movie to modern viewers, regarded as one of the best movies ever made and a watershed moment in motion picture history?
The Original Blockbuster
Well, Jaws is widely regarded as the first major blockbuster movie; it basically provided a blueprint for how modern movies are made, considering that the entire movie industry has shifted to produce more and more movies like that.
It came 60 years after the first modern narrative movie, Birth of a Nation, which, despite being tainted by its brazen racism, remains a groundbreaking release in cinema due to its use of innovative cinematic techniques and artistic and narrative developments. And just like Jaws now, Birth of a Nation was considered a banal movie when Jaws was first released.
One Of The Most Successful Movies In History
Our point here is that movies like Jaws, Citizen Kane, Lord of the Rings, and even Birth of a Nation all represent more to film history than simply the film itself, and most of them seem rather ordinary, or even banal, some 50 years after their release, simply because of how foundational they were to the industry.
Jaws, a movie that revolutionized film, was obviously a massive success both critically and commercially; it earned $476.5 million against a $9 million budget—a profit earning of nearly 5200 percent (yes, you read that right).
Jaws Is A Part Of History
Adjusted for inflation, its earnings would be in the range of $2.36 billion. Admittedly, there were other movies with higher return on investment—1979’s Mad Max had an ROI of approximately 22,000 percent).
However, none of those movies were nearly as revolutionary as Jaws, which won three Academy Awards and an additional 17 awards out of a total of 25 nominations, making its director, Steven Spielberg, a household name. For those interested in watching Jaws, the movie can be streamed on Peacock.
