Retro Look - Summer Movies of 1977

"Spiderman 3" will be hitting theaters in the U.S. on May 4^th which officially marks the earliest opening for a summer movie in history. For many years popular movies for summer opened in June and July with a week or two of August available. These movies were normally family friendly or drive-in friendly with not a whole lot of attention paid to which movies hit and which missed. Each summer the formula was the same.

Everything changed on June 20, 1975 when "Jaws" opened and would become the highest grossing movie of all time before Labor Day weekend. Studio executives took note and soon plans were in the works for higher profile and bigger budget films to open in the warm months even though it was considered a risk since families tend to vacation or relax at home unwilling to spend a few hours in a dark theater.

Another change came on May 25, 1977 when "Star Wars" opened and would supplant "Jaws" as the highest grossing film of all time and play in some theaters all the way up until Christmas or longer. Once again studio executives took note that you could pack theaters with kids of all ages no matter what time of year as long as the product was something to draw them in.

From then on Memorial Day became the official start of the summer movie season that would stretch all the way until Labor Day weekend.

Over the last few years studios have been toying with opportunity by opening their summer movie a week or two before Memorial Day. This year, with "Spiderman 3" opening at the first of the month, suddenly summer becomes official in multiplexes all over the country.

I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the summer movie season of 30 years ago when "Star Wars" dominated.