Summer is here, and that means it’s summer blockbuster season—the season when the big studios make their money. Kids out of school, summer vacations, hot days are all big reasons people go to the movies in the summer.
And that’s what the studios plan for. They know people will want to take a break from the summer heat and head inside for cool air and cold drinks. They know that kids will be looking for something to do, so why not take in a movie, or two or three? While the quality of the films can come into question (not too many Oscar winners are from the summer releases), the blockbusters are usually fun movies.
The first summer blockbuster is generally credited to Jaws, which came out the summer of 1975, breaking many of the ticket and revenue records at the time – with a budget of $8 million, it grossed an estimated $260,000,000!
Since that movie, studios have pushed to have the major crowd-pleasing movies to come out generally between Memorial and Labor Day, though April is generally considered the kick-off month for the summer season.
Some of the other summer blockbusters I’m sure you’ve heard of before:
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• Avengers (Lifetime gross – $623,357,910)
• The Mummy Returns ($202,019,785)
• Top Gun ($179,800,601)
• Back to the Future III ($87,049,211)
This summer is no different, with four huge movies already released (Captain America: Winter Soldier, Amazing Spiderman 2, Godzilla, and X-Men Days of Future Past), here are some future movies coming soon to a theatre near you!
• 22 Jump Street (June 13)
• Transformers 4 (June 27)
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (July 11)
• Jupiter Ascending (July 18)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (August 1)
Like with any other movie release, there is no telling what movie will gross over $200 million and which will barely match their budget. I look forward to seeing you at the theatre!
Are you looking for something to watch that’s much shorter? Well, here are two movies I recently helped make that are under 15 minutes!
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• The Roxy Incident (13 minutes)
• Game Day (just over 8 minutes)
My team won Best of Madison for Game Day, a movie made for the 48 Hour Film Project. [editor’s note: be sure to read the About section on Game Day so you know what elements they HAD to include in the film!]
