Impact of Jaws on the Film Distribution in Hollywood

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Jaws was the first film to open nationwide, on hundreds of screens simultaneously, coupled with a national marketing campaign—-a then-unheard of practice. Scheinberg's rationale was that nationwide marketing costs would be amortized at a more favorable rate per print than if a slow, scaled release were carried out. Scheinberg's gamble paid off, with Jaws becoming a box office smash hit and the father of the summer blockbuster.Following the success of Jaws, major studio films have almost universally been distributed and marketed on a national scale.