This summer blockbuster trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and starts where the summer movie season itself started, with Jaws in 1975, and runs all the way to Barbenheimer, Top Gun: Maverick and Inside Out 2. In between are the films that defined the season: Star Wars, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Batman, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Men in Black, Armageddon, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight and The Avengers. The questions cover where the word "blockbuster" came from, opening-weekend records, budgets that broke records, casting near-misses, production disasters and the odd behind-the-scenes deal, so it works for a movie night, a pub quiz round or a solo test of how much popcorn history you have absorbed. Roughly a third of the questions are easy, a third medium, and the rest are for people who read the credits. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia or a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word "blockbuster" entered the American press in the early 1940s. What did it originally describe?
WWII aerial bombs
The name referred to munitions that could level a whole city block, and by 1943 studio ads were borrowing it for action pictures.
Q 02The first known use of "block-buster" to describe a film came in 1943 ads for which RKO war picture?
Bombardier
Variety and Motion Picture Herald called it "the block-buster of all action-thrill-service shows," three decades before Jaws made the word a genre.
Q 03Which 1973 George Lucas hit is credited with helping birth the summer blockbuster before Jaws?
American Graffiti
Made for $777,000, it became one of the most profitable films of all time and gave Lucas the leverage to make his space saga.
Q 04Jaws was adapted from a 1974 bestselling novel by which author?
Peter Benchley
The author shares screenplay credit with Carl Gottlieb and has a cameo in the film as a TV reporter on the beach.
Q 05Jaws was shot mostly on location on which island, standing in for the fictional Amity?
Martha's Vineyard
The shoot ran from May to October 1974, far longer than planned, as the ocean and the props kept fighting back.
Q 06The crew nicknamed the mechanical sharks in Jaws "Bruce." Who was the namesake?
Spielberg's lawyer
Three full-size pneumatic sharks were built, and their constant breakdowns pushed the director to hide the fish for most of the film.
Q 07Principal photography on Jaws was scheduled for 55 days. How many days did it actually take?
159
The budget nearly tripled from the original $3.5 million estimate to $9 million along the way.
Q 08On how many screens did Jaws open across North America on June 20, 1975?
464
Universal chairman Lew Wasserman had actually cut the plan down from as many as 900 theaters after seeing a preview.
Q 09Universal spent an unprecedented sum on national television spots for Jaws. How much?
$700,000
About two dozen 30-second ads aired each night on prime-time network TV in the two days before opening, a tactic almost unheard of at the time.
Q 10On top of his salary for Star Wars (1977), Alec Guinness received what share of the film's backend grosses?
2.25%
The deal made him wealthy later in life, even though he was famously unimpressed by the dialogue.
Q 11George Lucas based Chewbacca on his own dog, Indiana. What breed was she?
Alaskan Malamute
The dog's name would be borrowed again a few years later for a certain whip-carrying archaeologist.
Q 12What subtitle was added to the original Star Wars when it was reissued in 1981?
Episode IV – A New Hope
The film had opened in 1977 with no episode number at all; the renumbering came once the sequels were underway.
Q 13Which candy company refused to let its product appear in E.T. (1982)?
Mars (M&M's)
Hershey said yes to Reese's Pieces instead, and the trail of candy that lures E.T. became one of the most famous product placements ever.
Q 21Whose theme song for Ghostbusters went to number one on the charts?
Ray Parker Jr.
The film itself finished as the second-highest-grossing release of 1984 in the US and Canada and was, for a time, the highest-grossing comedy ever.
Q 22Who was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future and fired in January 1985?
Eric Stoltz
Michael J. Fox then shot the film at night while filming Family Ties by day, and the release date was pulled forward to July 3 after strong test screenings.
Q 23Why was 88 mph chosen as the time-travel speed in Back to the Future?
It was easy to remember
Q 14Who wrote the screenplay for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?
Melissa Mathison
Her first draft, titled E.T. and Me, was written in eight weeks.
Q 15E.T. earned nine Oscar nominations but lost Best Picture to which film?
Gandhi
The winning film's director, Richard Attenborough, later said he was certain E.T. not only would win, but should have.
Q 16E.T.'s face was inspired by Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway and which American poet?
Carl Sandburg
The creature's raspy voice came mostly from Pat Welsh, an elderly woman with a two-packs-a-day smoking habit.
Q 17Tom Selleck was first choice for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark but was tied to which TV series?
Magnum, P.I.
Producers ended up gathering somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 snakes in a few days for the Well of Souls scene he never got to film.
Q 18Ghostbusters opened at number one on June 8, 1984, ahead of which same-weekend horror-comedy?
Gremlins
Both were produced on a rush: Ghostbusters went from greenlight to release in about 13 months.
Q 19According to Dan Aykroyd, which Ghostbusters role was originally intended for Eddie Murphy?
Winston Zeddemore
Aykroyd's first draft was set in the future with many teams of intergalactic ghost-hunters and was written with John Belushi in mind.
Q 20The real Ghostbusters firehouse, Hook & Ladder Company 8, is in which Manhattan neighborhood?
Tribeca
It is still a working FDNY firehouse and a stop on many New York movie tours.
The DeLorean itself was picked because it offered mobility and a unique look; an early draft used a refrigerator.
Q 24Which song did Huey Lewis and the News contribute to Back to the Future?
The Power of Love
Lewis had agreed to hand over the next song he wrote, and it became the band's first US number one; he also cameos as the teacher who rejects Marty's band.
Q 25Top Gun (1986) was inspired by an article titled "Top Guns" published in which magazine?
California
Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer optioned the story; the Navy later set up recruiting booths in some theaters showing the film.
Q 26In Top Gun, Maverick and Goose fly which Navy fighter?
F-14 Tomcat
The film cost about $15 million and grossed $177 million to finish as the top domestic release of 1986.
Q 27How many protest letters did fans reportedly send over Michael Keaton's casting in Batman (1989)?
50,000
The furor did nothing to slow the film, which grossed $40.49 million in its opening weekend and reached $100 million faster than any film before it.
Q 28Jack Nicholson cut his usual $10 million fee to $6 million to play the Joker in exchange for what?
A share of the earnings and merchandise
The deal is thought to have paid him well over $50 million, and he demanded top billing on the posters anyway.
Q 29Which rock singer lost the T-1000 role in Terminator 2 after a motorcycle crash?
Billy Idol
Robert Patrick won the part by auditioning as an emotionless hunter; the liquid-metal effects took a team of up to 35 people at ILM for about five minutes of screen time.
Q 30Carolco paid most of Arnold Schwarzenegger's salary for Terminator 2 in what form?
A private jet
The financed Gulfstream III was valued at $12.75 million, on a film whose budget of roughly $100 million made it the most expensive ever at the time.