In the early 1970s, Universal teamed up with Paramount Pictures to form Cinema International Corporation, which distributed films by Paramount and Universal worldwide. Though Universal did produce occasional hits, among them Airport (1970), The Sting (1973), American Graffiti (also 1973), Earthquake (1974), and a big box-office success which restored the company's fortunes: Jaws (1975), Universal during the decade was primarily a television studio. When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased United Artists in 1981, MGM could not drop out of the CIC venture to merge with United Artists overseas operations. However, with future film productions from both names being released through the MGM/UA Entertainment plate, CIC decided to merge UA's international units with MGM and reformed as United International Pictures. There would be other film hits like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Back to the Future (1985), Field of Dreams (1989), and Jurassic Park (1993), but the film business was financially unpredictable. UIP began distributing films by start-up studio DreamWorks in 1997, due to connections the founders have with Paramount, Universal, and Amblin Entertainment. In 2001, MGM dropped out of the UIP venture, and went with 20th Century Fox's international arm to handle distribution of their titles to this day.
In what year was the film Airport made?
1970s