The Big Picture: Remembering the Summer Movie Events of the 1990s

 

A newspaper ad for “Twister” from

Summer 1996

By Michael Lyons

 

Twenty-five years ago, this month was the start of the Summer Event Season. Oh, sure, some may call it the Summer Movie Season, but back in the 1990s, seemingly every movie that came out during the Summer was an Event.

 

Consider this: from the beginning of May 1996 through July 4 weekend that same year, Twister, Tom Cruise‘s first Mission Impossible, Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Independence Day all debuted in movie theaters.

 

Collectively all of those movies made over $2 billion worldwide at the box office.

 

They are also all examples of how movie studios marketed their films in the 1990s, particularly Summer movies, to be more than movies. They were Events. Going to see a big Summer movie in the 1990s at your local multiplex felt like going to a concert. The barrage of commercials and coverage and advertisements and promotions and fast food toys was nonstop. And on the Monday morning after the big movie opening weekend, if you were the only one at work who hadn’t seen the movie…boy, did you feel left out of the conversation.

 

Blame it on Batman.

 

In 1989, Warner Brothers marketed Tim Burton’s Batman, like no other movie had been marketed before. It started with a teaser trailer that began showing in movie theaters in early 1989 and culminated in the movie's opening week, where it was seemingly anywhere you turned.

A “Batman” newspaper ad from summer 1989, touting

The movies massive box-office returns.

Batman’s early, Thursday night screenings contained palpable, electric anticipations in the movie theater.  The entire Summer of 1989 became the Summer of Batman. The film made $411 million worldwide, changing the way movies were marketed and how we went to see movies after that for an entire decade.

 

Each successive Summer after that during the 1990s came with multiple big Summer Movies...make that big Summer… Events.

 

Steven Spielberg‘s Jurassic Park in the Summer of 1993 took the Summer Event Movie to the stratosphere, merging the excitement of the promotion that preceded the film with the theme park, thrill ride of the movie itself.

Early screenings, like this for “Jurassic Park”

In June of 1993 only generated even more excitement for the film.

 

So many movies followed the Event marketing formula in so many different ways- the same Summer as Jurassic Park saw Sylvester Stallone‘s Cliffhanger dominating Memorial Day Weekend that year (almost serving as a “warm-up act” for Spielberg’s Dino-blockbuster).  Even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero (which had the misfortune of opening to disappointing box-office results the weekend after Jurassic Park) was billed as “The Big Ticket for ‘93” in its early movie posters. 

Spielberg produced the live-action Flintstones the following Summer, which became the first Summer movie everyone wanted to see that year.  The Event Model even applied to loftier, more Oscar-worthy Summer films like Braveheart, Forrest Gump, and Apollo 13.

 

One of those aforementioned Summer Event movies celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, Twister, was such a big Event that it shifted this Summer Movie release calendar. Premiering over Mother’s Day weekend of 1996, Twister went on to generate $495 million worldwide, causing Hollywood to see the value in releasing Summer movies earlier than Memorial Day Weekend.

 

Disney became the master at the Summer Movie Events. They literally turned several of their significant animated features made during this decade into Events. The Lion King played at the New Amsterdam Theater in New York City and the El Capitan theater in Los Angeles during a special limited engagement before it opened in theaters everywhere, with a stage show featuring the Disney characters; the following year, Pocahontas premiered in Central Park with 100,000 people going to see it at a free, concert-like experience; twenty-five years ago, The Hunchback of Notre Dame premiered at the Louisiana Superdome.

 

Disney made sure that audiences knew “The Lion King”

Continued to be a hit throughout the summer of 1994

With newspaper ads like this.

 Summer Event movies would continue through the rest of the decade, culminating in 1999 with Star Wars Episode I-The Phantom Menace release that May, probably the most highly anticipated movie of the entire decade.

“Star Wars- Episode I” made the cover of

Almost every magazine in the summer of ‘99

After this, many studio’s marketing machines, while still in full vigor, cooled to the Summer Movie Event model.  This could have been due to the power of Blockbuster video at the time, or the shortened window from when a film went from theaters to VHS/DVD, or it could be that audiences’ tastes were beginning to change with the end of the decade and the beginning of a new century.

And while we do still see glimmers of the Summer Event Movie (it’s probably safe to say that Marvel Studios has become the true, recent masters of this), the Summers of seemingly one after another after another seems to be now locked away in a time capsule with other 90s relics.

And with the strain of the pandemic and the onset of streaming services taking the last gasp of wind out of the sales of many movie theater chains, will we ever see the return of the Summer Event Movie?

We can hope.  After last year, now just the comfort of returning to a movie theater alone feels like an Event.

It’s a nice thought, however, to think that someday it could come back.  Here’s hoping for a new generation of big movies, shown in crowded theaters, on warm hazy evenings.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Summer