Suddenly Summer: Films That Changed The Summer Movie Season

By Michael Lyons

It never fails, each year on October 31st, Social Media is abuzz about how once Halloween ends at midnight, it’s the Christmas Season.  As a culture, we do like to move on to “the next big” thing quickly and, with that, the official start of the Christmas Season continually gets bumped up, eclipsing Thanksgiving.

There’s also a version of this that has been happening in the Spring, specifically in Hollywood and even more specifically with the Summer Movie Season.

On June 20, 1975, Steven Spielberg’s seminal blockbuster “Jaws” debuted and essentially created the Season.  Prior to “Jaws,” movie studios viewed Summer as a wasteland.  After all, who in their right mind would be at a movie theater during a vacation time of year filed with beaches and bar-b-q’s

The immense success of “Jaws” shattered this mindset and Hollywood soon began positioning some of their biggest movies during the hot and hazy time of year.

The Summer Movie Season was born.

Much like Christmas, Hollywood’s start of this season has continually moved up earlier and earlier, so that now, according to Tinseltown, Summer starts the last weekend of April.

Last year, Marvel released “Avengers: Infinity War” on April 25th, followed up by this year’s “Avengers: Endgame,” which was released on April 26th.  The concluding comic book epic has left everyone staring in bug-eyed wonder, not only at how amazing the film is, but at how immensely successful it’s been at the box-office.  A landmark in every way.

As audiences, how did we get to a point where Summer Blockbusters come on the heels of Easter?  To answer this, one must take a trip back in time to look at the movies that changed the Summer Movie Season and through the years allowed it to start earlier and earlier.

“Star Wars” (Released May 25, 1977).  Just two years after “Jaws,” George Lucas’ evergreen science fiction masterwork jumped the gun on the Summer Movie Season by opening on Memorial Day weekend.

After all, if a Summer movie is going to come out, shouldn’t it open during the “unofficial” start of Summer?  This made so much sense to Hollywood that for almost twenty years Memorial Day Weekend not only kicked off the Summer Season, it heralded the start of the Summer Movie Season.

Two of the “Star Wars” sequels and all of the prequels opened for Memorial Day, as did the successful “Indiana Jones” sequels.  Every franchise in Hollywood from “Poltergeist” to “Pirates of the Caribbean” have found themselves here.

Movies released over Memorial Day Weekend were, for years, the all-important “first strike” for the Season and the biggest blockbusters-in-waiting were scheduled here.

However, in recent years, Memorial Day Weekend has emerged as somewhat of a jinx for many promising movies that went on to box-office disappointment (last summer’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story” is the most recent example).

Could be that the shifting Summer release dates have changed audience habits.  So, how did the start of the season get even earlier?  Believe it or not, it started with a Barbarian.

“Conan the Barbarian” (Released May 14, 1982) Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Sword and Sorcery film adaptation of the popular pulp novels was a modest success that teetered on blockbuster status.

More importantly, it showed Hollywood that there was an appetite for Summer appropriate movies prior to the start of Summer.  The weekend or so before Memorial Day became the release date for such films as “Willow” (1988), “Die Hard with a Vengeance” (1995) and the the now famous flop, 1987’s “Ishtar.”

None were game-changing blockbusters however.  That would be a movie that blew through Hollywood...like a storm.

“Twister” (Released May 10, 1996).  Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, computer generated tornados and flying cows all added up to a surprisingly successful opening weekend that took everyone by surprise.

The visceral, immensely entertaining film went on to become the second high grossing film that year and Hollywood took notice.  Suddenly, Mother’s Day Weekend became the start of the Summer Movie Season.  But, even this was to change in a “super” way.

“Spider Man” (released May 3, 2002).  Director Sam Raimi’s blockbuster adaptation of Marvel’s most popular super hero was important in many ways: it laid the groundwork for the mega-Marvel bonanza we enjoy today and it’s success signaled a Summer Movie Season that would begin the first weekend of May.

In fact, for many years after, with movies ranging from “Iron Man” in 2008 to 2012’s “The Avengers,” this weekend has been dominated by Marvel releases.  The Studio then bumped up “Avengers: Infinity War” to the last week of April a year ago...and the start of the Summer Movie Season changed again.

With so many big movies like this released throughout the year now, it makes one wonder if the Summer Movie Season is slowly becoming a thing of the past.  The “Golden Age” of the Spielberg/Lucas Summer movies of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s and the anticipation and popularity of Summer Movies now seem like a bygone era.

Our current, impatient tastes of wanting new movies now and the short window between theaters and home video has led to a round-the-calendar schedule of movies that, at one time, were reserved for May through August.

Something to ponder as we wait for the Halloween Movie Season, which will now probably start right after July 4th.

Sources:

Wikipedia