Blockbuster (entertainment)

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This article refers to the theatrical slang term; for other uses see Blockbuster (disambiguation).

Blockbuster, as applied to film or theater, denotes a very popular and/or successful production. The term was originally derived from theater slang referring to a particularly successful play but is now used primarily by the film industry.

The etymology of the term is uncertain; some histories cite it as originally referring to a play that is so successful that competing theaters on the block are "busted" and driven out of business; others claim a derivation from the nickname of a type of World War II-era bomb capable of destroying an entire city block. Still others note that the term may stem from crowds of people that might flock to line up for a hit play, perhaps stretching over several city blocks. Whatever its origin, the term quickly caught on as a way to describe a hit, and has subsequently been applied to productions other than plays and films, including novels and multi million selling computer/console game titles.

Tom Laughlin's cult classic film Billy Jack is credited with being the first "blockbuster" due to the clever marketing strategy of opening the film in multiple theaters in the same market at the same time, thereby increasing the gross numbers for the film. Studios now open certain films on thousands of screens in an attempt to inflate box office revenues of a film to "blockbuster" status.

Since about 1975, the threshold for a blockbuster film in North America has often been placed at $100,000,000 in ticket sales, an amount first achieved by the film Jaws, although The Sound of Music (1965), the first film to make more money than Gone with the Wind, was a gigantic hit in its day. (It played more than a year in some first-run houses.)

In response to the huge success of Jaws, many Hollywood producers attempted to create "event films" with wide commercial appeal. Film companies began green lighting increasingly high budgeted films and relying extensively on massive advertising blitzes leading up to their theatrical release, thus ushering in the so-called "blockbuster era". Spielberg and director/producer George Lucas (whose 1977 film Star Wars was the most successful film of the decade) are the filmmakers most closely associated with the beginning of the blockbuster era. The focus on creating blockbusters grew so intense that a backlash occurred, with critics decrying the prevalence of a "blockbuster mentality" and lamenting the death of author-driven, small-scale films. Many within Hollywood were wary of attempting to create blockbusters or event movies due to the high financial risk entailed in big-budget film making. This debate prevailed for a long time after the successes of early blockbusters such as Jaws and Star Wars.

When a film made on a low budget is particularly successful or exceeds the expectations of films in its genre, then those films are considered blockbusters as well. Examples include Fried Green Tomatoes (made at a budget of about $13,000,000, and earner of about $80,000,000 at the box office), The Rugrats Movie (the first non-Disney animated feature to gross over $100,000,000), The Blair Witch Project (amateur-produced first-person narrative film); Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (non-English language foreign film); Fahrenheit 9/11 (political documentary film); Rocky; and Borat: Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazhakstan (satirical documentary); all of which have made over $100 million each.