In a summer turned upside down, Jaws and ET are hit again | Entertainment

NEW YORK (AP) When historians remember the best box office movies in the summer of 2020, they may feel like they’ve slipped into time warp, or maybe Back to the Future.

During the second weekend of July, Empire Strikes Back 40 years after its first release was # 1 again. Ghostbusters won on the weekend of July 4, 36 years after it opened. Over the weekend of June 19-21, and 27 years after its last box office header, Jurassic Park once again led theaters.

In a pandemic that has resurrected all manner of vintage hobbies, from puzzles to drive-ins, even blockbusters are retro. This is largely out of necessity. About 1,000 theaters in the United States are currently open, or roughly one sixth of national theaters. This includes the 300 or so drive-in parks which, since the multiplexes closed in March, have hosted the majority of films.

With all of the major new releases postponed until at least Labor Day weekend, summer cinema is once again a classics, the genre of films that for many remain as indelible in the season as the ET’s. is in Elliott. Brian Keasey, 44, from Montrose, Colo., Goes there every week, when he’s not playing movies on his backyard screen.

I saw Jaws on the big screen. I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen. I saw my childhood on the big screen, Keasey said hours before heading to a feature double from Ghostbusters and The Rental, a new indie horror film from Dave Franco.

It is an American film in progress in the summer of 2020. A nostalgic trip to the drive-in. A white sheet was hung on the patio. The comforting reunion with a great white shark. Keasey says he’s seen Jaws three times this summer, including once on a makeshift screen next to a pond.

It’s the classic summer blockbuster. That’s wonderful. You can freeze the frame of any piece of that movie and it’s a perfect slice of America from 1975, Keasey says. I feel like those movies from the 70s and 80s had character development. Now it’s 100% right out of the door. There is no more room to breathe.

Of the catalog movies, Jurassic Park led them all with just over $ 3 million in ticket sales this summer, according to several people who have seen box office revenue. Major studios have refused to report ticket sales during the pandemic. The numbers, of course, are extremely paltry compared to the usual billions generated in Hollywood’s main season.

Unreported earnings for new releases like Trolls World Tour and Onward exceed those for repertoire releases. But the likes of Jaws, ET, Goonies, and Ghostbusters rank among the best summer draws.

That vacuum has led to some unlikely heavyweights at the box office this summer. IFC Films’ low-budget horror flick The Wretched led all reported films for seven consecutive weekends in May and early June, a streak that matches that of Avatar. It grossed $ 1.8 million in 13 weeks, an impressive total for a movie made for less than $ 100,000.

Mission Tiki, the Polynesian-themed four-screen drive-in in Montclair, California, outside Los Angeles and flanked by the San Gabriel Mountains, has also become the epicenter of American cinema. DeAnza Land and Leisure, which owns Mission Tiki and five other drive-ins, outperforms all other tours with 32% market share.

Typically, chains like AMC and Regal would dominate these listings, and urban multiplexes would be the best sellers. But at one point in the spring, when Mission Tiki was one of the few operating theaters, the circuit accounted for nearly 70% of national gross.

It’s ridiculous, says Frank Huttinger, the company’s managing director.

Huttinger, happy to have taken a break from accounting, looked exhausted on a recent evening. He never worked harder, he said.

For a while there, we just refused people. Now that the theaters are operating at half capacity, they have fired a lot of people, Huttinger says. We’re getting spinoff due to sold out, so all screens are working fine no matter what your game is. Right now, Goonies with Gremlins is just bringing it out of the park.

First opened in 1947, the Mission Tikis circuit had 40 screens at its peak. Now it happens to be the hottest movie theater in Southern California, although it lacks the usual perks.

Sometimes you can’t help but do something right, says Huttinger. But I promise you, no one calls me for A-list parties.

The weekend box office results generally work, like the Top 40 Radio Hits, as cultural benchmarks. It would be hard to remember the summer of 1981 without mentioning Raiders of the Lost Ark, or the summer of 1977 without remembering Star Wars. Summer films sink into childhood memories.

This year, it’s possible that Hamilton, on Disney +, was the most-watched movie of the summer, or that The Old Guard, on Netflix, has filled a void. But the audience for these films was not broadcast either. Anyone who clings to a collective cinematic experience or the feeling of a must-see movie has had to do it for themselves.

Given the financial pressures on cinemas, most of which have been closed for almost five months, it is not at all clear whether the cinema will survive the pandemic intact. Earlier this week, AMC Theaters and Universal Pictures agreed to reduce the traditional 90-day exclusive theatrical showcase to a minimum of just 17 days. Jaws, who gave birth to the modern blockbuster, performed for 196 days.

But the big screen for many still carries romance. Herb Geraghty, 24, started dating someone shortly before the pandemic lockdown began. They only met on Skype. For their first in-person date, they drove from Pittsburgh, PA to the Dependable Drive-In in Moon Township.

They first saw the indie thriller Vast of the Night and then, on subsequent trips, watched the Knives Out murder mystery and a double bill from Jaws and Jurassic Park. They arrive early, spread a blanket and have a picnic. The commercials between screenings, Geraghty says, make me feel like I’m in Grease. A routine developed and the relationship stuck.

We do it pretty much every weekend now, says Geraghty.