Feature - Another Blockbuster Summer - Part 1

Does anyone know the way... There's got to be a way to Blockbuster!!! (The Sweet - Blockbuster, 1976)

Here's a quick lesson in etymology. The word 'blockbuster' was originally a militaristic term coined during the Second World War regarding any bomb powerful enough to obliterate an entire street (or block). Then in subsequent decades it was adopted by the American movie industry to describe films such as Gone With the Wind or Ben Hur - features that made a huge box office explosion, as it were.

It was the 1975 advent of Stephen Spielberg's Jaws, however, that popularised the term. To some extent it also redefined it. 'Blockbuster' now came to signify a big event-movie aimed at a mass market. Here's the interesting thing... Whereas blockbusters were originally defined as films that had made a lot of money, post-Jaws they became those that cost a lot to make, with the aim of earning a lot more. But as we now know, for every Captain America there's a Jupiter Ascending, or even a Gods of Egypt. And if you haven't heard of the latter two, there's a simple reason. Yes - there now ironically exists such a thing as the 'blockbuster flop'. (Think of it in terms of a huge entertainment bomb that failed to explode.)

Jaws set a precedent in US cinema - one reinforced by further early Spielberg works and by George Lucas' original Star Wars films - of big-budget crowd-pleasers with vast marketing campaigns, which acted as studio mid-year centerpieces. Yes - the 'summer blockbuster' rapidly became a thing, along with a resultant sea of merchandising. By the '80s (and it's been the same ever since) a clutch of lavishly-produced American films fill up UK cinema screens, as studios vie to produce that year's definitive summer hit. No longer is there a single Jaws-type one-off that routs the competition. Now you get a good half-dozen-plus movies jostling for screen space, with several generally elbowing their way to predominance. 

More than that, the blockbuster phenomenon has spilled over, so that the entire calendar year is marked out in great splashy Hollywood spectacles. Christmas, Easter, Labor Day, Thanksgiving - all the big US holidays are accompanied by huge blockbuster openings, to the extent that studios have to negotiate so that they're not pitting their big titles against each other on the same initial weekend. 

But set that aside and just focus on summer 2017. In your local multiplex right now Wonder Woman is still cutting down competitors with her broadsword several weeks after release. Meanwhile franchise juggernauts Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean are both successfully fighting their ground (or sea areas), with Tom Cruise's resurrection of The Mummy likely to be prematurely re-tombed as a result. Then July will chuck Despicable Me 3, Cars 3, Spiderman: Homecoming and War for the Planet of the Apes into the colourful melee. 

Now I'm no grump when it comes to flashy effects-heavy entertainment. I mean my tickets are as good as printed for both Peter Parker and those battling apes. And if you check back through my recent reviews you'll see how much I enjoyed Fantastic Beasts, Doctor Strange and Rogue One. I like event movies. But, I'm also irritated and saddened by a variety of aspects of blockbuster culture. Sufficiently irritated and saddened to write a whole follow-up blog entry about it. It's going to take that much space.

Suffice to say for now that innovations entertainment can be as double-edged in entertainment as in the rest of life. And while big, loud computer-generated mayhem can enliven a muggy Saturday afternoon, it's surely not everything that cinema was meant to be.

But I'll get back to that later...