tent pole
n.— «A studio like Fox usually works on dozens of DVD’s at a time—from minor television shows to $100 million-plus “tent poles” meant to draw everyone in and that entail a marketing blitz mapped out long beforehand.» —“Box Office in a Box” by Jon Gertner New York Times Nov. 14, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
David says that when he was growing up in Akron, Ohio, his family referred to the grassy area between the sidewalk and street as the devil strip. He’s since moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he doesn’t hear that term. There are lots...
What a cool resource this is! My biography of Truk Lagoon’s Kimiuo Aisek is coming out soon, and Titanic co-producer Al Giddings is writing the foreword (correct, not forward!). He buzzed me to send him my thoughts on ‘tent-pole events’ to be included in what he writes. I never worked for Fox Studios. I’m just a scuba diver! I taught college writing for 18 years, love words, but had never heard this term. Had to Google rather than embarrass myself in the eyes of “Super Shooter” Al Giddings — the name Kimiuo Aisek gave him after Al named Kimiuo “Big Shooter!”