Today , the wordblockbusteris unremarkably associated withmovies , whether you ’re talking about a movie that achieve massivesuccess at the box officeor a sure defunctvideo rental concatenation . Though its meaning is unobjectionable now , back in the 1940s , it was used to describe something much glowering .
According toTIME , the originalblockbusterswere large , highly destructive bombs used duringWorld War II . The magazine first print the word in a November 29 , 1942 , clause about an Allied bombardment in Italy ; the moniker come from the weapon ’s ability to decimate entire city auction block . As the British Royal Air Force continue to drop the bombs throughout the war , the name catch on , and it was soon used to come to to anything particularly volatile or overweening .
Steven Spielberg’sJaws(1975 ) is wide considered thefirst summer blockbuster , but Hollywood ’s connection to the word predates it by a few decades . Beforeblockbusterconnotedbox office success , it describe any bold or noteworthy production . In 1943,TIMEwrote , “ critics decided thatMission to Moscowis as volatile as a smash hit , ” in quotation to the controversial political thriller . By the mid-1950s , producerMax E. Youngsteinhad defined a blockbuster as any movie that grossed over $ 2 million , and United Artists was aiming to discharge at least one blockbuster per calendar month .
Today , there ’s no agreed - upon amount of money a motion-picture show needs to make before it ’s considered ablockbuster . In general , commercial films that realise major box office returns correspond the definition , even if their content is n’t particularly volatile . you may check out the highest - gross blockbusters of the last 50 yearshere .
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A version of this chronicle was originally published in 2021 and has been updated for 2024 .
