'Jaws' coming back to theaters for 2 days in June

"Smile, you son of a…"

This summer marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Steven Spielberg's "Jaws, and to help mark the occasion, Universal Pictures, Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events are teaming up to bring the 1975 blockbuster back to theaters for two days.

The movie will screen at select theaters at 2 and 7 p.m. on both Sunday, June 21, and Wednesday, June 24. A 10-minute introduction hosted by TCM's Ben Mankiewicz will precede the feature. It will be preceded by a 10-minute segment hosted by TCM's Ben Mankiewicz.

• AMC Showplace Indianapolis 17 (4325 S. Meridian St.)

• AMC Castleton Square 14 (6020 E. 82nd St.)

• UA Galaxy 14 (8105 E. 96th St.)

• Goodrich Brownsburg 8 (1555 N. Green St., Brownsburg)

• Goodrich Hamilton 16 (13825 Norrell Rd., Noblesville)

• Carmike Metropolis 18 (2490 Futura Park Way, Plainfield)

Tickets will run $12-$12.50 and are currently available via Fandango.

If you're unable to make either of those days, the Indianapolis Museum of Art will screen the movie at dusk on July 3 as part of its "National Bank of Indianapolis Summer Nights" film series. The pre-show activities, which begin at 7 p.m., feature inflatable pools and other beach-/shark-related toys and games.Tickets for the IMA screening will cost $12 for the general public or $6 for museum members.

It's next to impossible to overstate the impact of "Jaws." Releasing June 20, 1975, it went on to become the highest-grossing movie ever in the U.S. – a record broken two years later by "Star Wars" – and gross more than $470 million worldwide. Taking inflation into account is tricky when you're talking 10 years, but when you quadruple the length of time and add in other countries and their inflation rates, it becomes a fool's errand. With that said, it's not going out on a limb to say that "Jaws" would be among the highest-grossing ever in adjusted dollars.

Its success gave birth to "the summer movie season," when studios would release expensive blockbuster films that tended to favor action and explosions rather than character development and drama.

Oddly, "Jaws" itself doesn't even meet those criteria as it was relatively low budget – $9 million – and punctuated, not dominated, by action. Spielberg made the "forced by practicality" artistic decision to keep shots of the mechanical shark (dubbed "Bruce") to a minimum.

The movie also made director Spielberg a major player in Hollywood, leading to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "E.T.," "Schindler's List," etc. On the music front, the iconic score propelled John Williams to the forefront of his field, leading to "Star Wars," "Superman" and most of Spielberg's later movies.

On the local front, the speech Quint (Robert Shaw) gives about his experience on the USS Indianapolis helped to bring that tragedy back to the forefront, though he kind of fudged some of the details.

Call Star online editor Channing King at (317) 444-8073. Follow him @ChanningKing