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Jaws Wiki
Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. The police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark
by closing the beach, only to be overruled by the town council, which
wants the beach to remain open to draw a profit from tourists during the
summer season. After several attacks, the police chief enlists the help
of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter. Roy Scheider stars as police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as marine biologist Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw as shark hunter Quint, Murray Hamilton as the Mayor of Amity Island, and Lorraine Gary as Brody's wife, Ellen.
Jaws is regarded as a watershed film in motion picture history, the father of the summer blockbuster film and one of the first "high concept" films.[1][2]
Due to the film's success in advance screenings, studio executives
decided to distribute it in a much wider release than ever before. The Omen followed suit in the summer of 1976 and then Star Wars
one year later in 1977, cementing the notion for movie studios to
distribute their big-release action and adventure pictures (commonly
referred to as tentpole pictures) during the summer. Jaws is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] It was number 48 on American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies, a list of the greatest American films of all time, dropping down to number 56 on the 10 Year Anniversary list. It ranked second on a similar list for thrillers, 100 Years... 100 Thrills and was number one on Bravo's list of The 100 Scariest Movie Moments.[11] The film was followed by three sequels, none with the participation of Spielberg or Benchley. A video game titled Jaws Unleashed was produced in 2006. Plot
During a late night beach party on the fictional Amity Island in New England, a 23-year-old woman named Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie) goes skinny dipping only to be pulled under by an unseen force. Amity's new police chief, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), is notified that Chrissie is missing, and deputy Lenny Hendricks (Jeffrey Kramer)
finds her remains. The medical examiner informs Brody that the death
was due to a shark attack. Brody plans to close the beaches but is
overruled by town mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton),
who fears that reports of a shark attack will ruin the summer tourist
season. The medical examiner reverses his diagnosis and attributes the
death to a boating accident. Brody reluctantly goes along with the
explanation.
A short time later, a boy is brutally killed by a shark at the beach. The boy's mother places a bounty on the shark, sparking an amateur shark hunting frenzy and attracting the attention of local professional shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw). Brought in by Brody, ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) examines Chrissie's remains and concludes she was killed by a shark.
A large tiger shark
is caught by a group of fishermen, leading the town to believe the
problem is solved, but Hooper is unconvinced that the shark is the
killer and asks to examine its stomach contents. Vaughn refuses to make
the "operation" public, so Brody and Hooper return after dark and
discover the dead shark does not contain human remains. Scouting aboard
Hooper's boat, they come across the half-sunken wreckage of a boat
belonging to local fisherman Ben Gardener. Hooper explores the vessel
underwater and discovers a massive shark's tooth, but also Gardener's
severed head, which makes him drop the tooth in a panic. Vaughn refuses
to close the beaches, and on the Fourth of July numerous tourists
arrive. After a prank by two boys causes a panic, the shark enters an estuary,
kills a man and causes Brody's son go into shock after witnessing it.
Brody forces Vaughn to hire Quint. Brody and Hooper join the hunter on
his fishing boat, the Orca, and the trio set out to kill the shark.
Brody is given the task of laying a chum line while Quint uses deep-sea fishing tackle to try to hook the shark. As Brody continues chumming, an enormous great white shark looms up behind the boat; the trio watch the great white circle the Orca
and estimate it weighs 3 short tons (2.7 t) and is 25 feet (7.6 m)
long. Quint harpoons the shark with a line attached to a flotation
barrel, designed to prevent the shark from submerging and to track it on
the surface, but the shark pulls the barrel under and disappears.
Night falls without another sighting, so the men retire to the boat's
cabin, where Quint tells of his experience with sharks as a survivor of
the World War II sinking of the USS Indianapolis.
The shark reappears, damaging the boat's hull before slipping away. In
the morning, the men make repairs to the engine. Attempting to call the Coast Guard
for help, Brody is stopped by Quint, who destroys the radio with a
baseball bat. The shark attacks again, and after a long chase Quint
harpoons another barrel to it. The men tie the barrels to the stern, but
the shark drags the boat backwards, forcing water onto the deck and
into the engine, flooding it. Quint harpoons the shark again, adding a
third barrel, while the shark continues towing them. Quint is about to
cut the ropes with his machete when the cleats are pulled off the stern.
The shark continues attacking the boat and Quint heads toward shore
with the shark in pursuit, hoping to draw the animal into shallow
waters, where it will be beached and drown. In his obsession to kill the
shark, Quint overtaxes Orca's engine, causing it to seize.
With the boat immobilized, the trio try a desperate approach: Hooper dons his SCUBA gear and enters the ocean inside a shark proof cage in order to stab the shark in the mouth with a hypodermic spear filled with strychnine.
The shark destroys the cage but gets tangled in the remains, allowing
Hooper to hide on the seabed. As Quint and Brody raise the remnants of
the cage, the shark throws itself onto the boat, crushing the transom.
As the boat sinks, Quint slides down the slippery deck and is eaten by
the shark. Brody retreats to the boat's partly submerged cabin. When the
shark attacks him there, he shoves a pressurized air tank into the
shark's mouth, then takes Quint's M1 Garand and climbs the Orca's mast. Brody begins shooting at the air tank wedged in the shark's mouth, causing it to explode and blow the shark to pieces.
As the shark's carcass drifts toward the seabed, Hooper reappears on
the surface. The survivors briefly lament the loss of Quint, then cobble
together a raft from debris and paddle to Amity Island.
[edit] Production
[edit] Development
Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, producers at Universal Pictures, heard about Peter Benchley's novel at the same time at different locations. Brown came across it in the fiction department of Cosmopolitan, a lifestyle magazine then edited by his wife, Helen Gurley Brown. A small card gave a detailed description of the plot, concluding with the comment "might make a good movie".[12]
The producers each read it overnight and agreed the next morning that
it was "the most exciting thing that they had ever read" and that,
although they were unsure how they would accomplish it, they wanted to
produce the film.[13]
Brown claimed that had they read the book twice they would have never
have made the film because of the difficulties in executing some of the
sequences.[14] They purchased the film rights to Benchley's novel in 1973 for approximately $175,000.[15]
Zanuck and Brown had originally planned to hire John Sturges to direct the film, before considering Dick Richards.[16]
However, they grew irritated by Richards' vision of continually calling
the shark "the whale"; Richards was subsequently dropped from the
project.[16] Zanuck and Brown then signed Spielberg in June 1973 to direct before the release of his first theatrical film, The Sugarland Express (also a Zanuck/Brown production).[16] Spielberg wanted to take the novel's basic concept, removing Benchley's many subplots.[15]
Zanuck, Brown and Spielberg removed the novel's adulterous affair
between Ellen Brody and Matt Hooper because it would compromise the
camaraderie between the men when they went out on the Orca.[12]
When they purchased the rights to his novel, the producers guaranteed that the author would write the first draft of the screenplay.
Overall, Benchley wrote three drafts before deciding to bow out of the
project (although he appeared in the final film, a cameo appearance as a
news reporter).[15] Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Howard Sackler
happened to be in Los Angeles when the filmmakers began looking for
another writer and offered to do an uncredited rewrite, and since the
producers and Spielberg were unhappy with Benchley's drafts, they
quickly accepted his offer.[17] Spielberg sent the script to Carl Gottlieb (who appears in a supporting acting role in the film as Meadows, the politically connected editor of the local paper), asking for advice.[17] Gottlieb rewrote most scenes during principal photography, and John Milius
contributed dialogue polishes. Spielberg has claimed that he prepared
his own draft, although it is unclear if the other screenwriters drew on
his material. The authorship of Quint's monologue about the fate of the
cruiser USS Indianapolis
has caused substantial controversy as to who deserves the most credit
for the speech. Spielberg described it as a collaboration among John
Milius, Howard Sackler, and actor Robert Shaw.[18] Gottlieb gives primary credit to Shaw, downplaying Milius' contribution.[19]
[edit] Casting
Spielberg offered the role of Brody to Robert Duvall, but the actor was only interested in portraying Quint.[20] According to Spielberg, Charlton Heston
expressed a desire for the role, but Spielberg felt that Heston was too
large a personality, as Spielberg intended the film's primary "star" to
be the shark.[21]
Roy Scheider became interested in the project after overhearing a
screenwriter and Spielberg at a party talking about having the shark
jump up onto a boat.[17] Spielberg was initially apprehensive of hiring Scheider, fearing he would portray a "tough guy", similar to his role in The French Connection.[20]
The role of Quint was originally offered to actors Lee Marvin and Sterling Hayden, both of whom passed.[17][20] Producers Zanuck and Brown had just finished working with Robert Shaw on The Sting, and suggested him to Spielberg as a possible Quint. For the role of Hooper, Spielberg initially wanted Jon Voight.[22]
Richard Dreyfuss initially passed on the role of Matt Hooper, but after
being disappointed by his own performance in a pre-release screening of
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,
a film he had just completed, he immediately called Spielberg and
accepted the role, fearing that no one would want to hire him once Kravitz
was released. Due to the film's dissimilarities to the novel, Spielberg
asked Dreyfuss not to read the book before offering the role.[23] The first person actually cast for the film was Lorraine Gary, the wife of then-studio chief, Sid Sheinberg.[17]
[edit] Filming
"We started the film without a script, without a cast and without a shark."
Principal photography began in May 1974.[25]
Three mechanical sharks were made for the production: a full version
for underwater shots, one that moved from camera-left to right (with its
hidden side completely exposing the internal machinery), and an
opposite model with its right flank uncovered.[15] Their construction was supervised by production designer Joe Alves
and special effects artist Bob Mattey. After the sharks were completed,
they were shipped to the shooting location, but had only been tested in
controlled conditions in a pool. The platform used to tow the two "side
model" sharks capsized as it was being lowered to the ocean floor,
forcing a team of divers to retrieve it.[17] The model required 14 operators to control all of the moving parts.[23]
Location shooting occurred on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, chosen because the ocean had a sandy bottom 12 miles (19 km) out at sea and never dropped below thirty-five feet.[17]
This helped the mechanical sharks to operate smoothly and still provide
a realistic location. The film nonetheless had a troubled shoot and
went considerably over budget. David Brown said that the budget "was $4
million and the picture wound up costing $9 million".[26] Shooting at sea led to many delays: unwanted sailboats drifted into frame, cameras got soaked, and the Orca
once began to sink with the actors onboard. The mechanical shark
frequently malfunctioned, due to the hydraulic innards being corroded by
salt water.[17] The three mechanical sharks were collectively nicknamed "Bruce" by the production team after Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce Raimer.[27] Disgruntled crew members gave the film the nickname "Flaws".[23][27]
Bruce, the full model mechanical shark, attached to special rigging
To some degree, the delays in the production proved serendipitous.
The script was refined during production, and the unreliable mechanical
sharks forced Spielberg to shoot most of the scenes with the shark only
hinted at. For example, for much of the shark hunt, its location is
represented by the floating yellow barrels. Spielberg also included
multiple shots of just the dorsal fin due to its ease of filming. This
forced restraint is widely thought to have increased the suspense of
these scenes, giving it a Hitchcockian tone.[23][28]
The scene where Hooper discovers fisherman Ben Gardner's head in the hull
of his wrecked boat was added after an initial screening of the film.
After reactions to that screening, Spielberg said he was greedy for "one
more scream" and, with $3,000 of his own money, financed the scene
after he was denied funding from Universal Pictures.[17]
Actor Craig Kingsbury had to press his head into a latex mold to make
an exact copy, which was then attached to a fake body and placed in the
wrecked boat's hull. The underwater scene was shot in film editor Verna
Fields' swimming pool.
Footage of real sharks was shot by Ron and Valerie Taylor in the waters off Australia, with a dwarf actor in a miniature shark cage to create the illusion that the shark was enormous.[17][29]
Originally, the script, following the novel, had the shark killing
Hooper in the shark cage, but during filming one of the sharks became
trapped in the girdle of the cage and proceeded to tear the cage apart.[17] The crew found the footage of this incident to be so visually stunning, they were eager to incorporate it into the final film.[21]
However, no one had been in the cage at the time, so the script was
changed to have Matt Hooper escape, thus providing an explanation for
the empty cage.[17][21]
Although filming was scheduled to take 55 days, it eventually ended in September 1974 after 159 days.[23][25]
Spielberg, reflecting on the extended delay, stated: "I thought my
career as a filmmaker was over. I heard rumors ... that I would never
work again because no one had ever taken a film 100 days over schedule."[23]
Spielberg himself was not present for the shooting of the final scene
where the shark explodes. He believed that the crew were planning to
throw him in the water when this scene was complete. It has since become
a tradition for Spielberg to be absent when the final scene of a film
he directs is being filmed.[30]
A fourth shark model was built months after the original three were
built. It was later placed at the entrance to the Universal Studios
Theme Park until it was removed in 1990. It was recovered at a Sun
Valley junkyard in June 2010, with Alves and Arbogast confirming its
authenticity.[31][32]
[edit] Reception
[edit] Box office performance
Jaws was the first film to successfully use "wide release" as a
distribution pattern. As such, it is an important film in the history
of film distribution and marketing.[33] Prior to the release of Jaws,
films typically opened slowly, usually in a few theaters in major
cities, which allowed for a series of "premieres." As the success of a
film increased, and word of mouth grew, distributors would forward the
prints to additional cities across the country. Some films eventually
achieved a wide release, such as The Godfather, but even that blockbuster had originally debuted in just five theaters.[34]
Jaws was the first film to successfully open nationwide on
hundreds of screens simultaneously, coupled with a national marketing
campaign—a then-unheard of practice. (A month earlier, Columbia had done
the same with a Charles Bronson thriller, Breakout, but the box office was middling at best.) The film became the first to use extensive television advertising.[35]
The media blitz "included approximately twenty-five thirty-second
advertisements per night on prime-time network TV" between 18–20 June
1975.[33] Universal executive Sidney Sheinberg's
rationale was that nationwide marketing costs would be amortized at a
more favorable rate per print than if a slow, scaled release were
carried out. Sheinberg's gamble paid off, with Jaws becoming a box office smash hit and the father of the summer blockbuster.[36][37]
After the release of Jaws, journalists and critics detailed its impact on how films were released in theaters. Peter Biskind
wrote, "[The film] diminish[ed] the importance of print reviews, making
it virtually impossible for a film to build slowly, finding its
audience by dint of mere quality. ... In a sense, Spielberg was the
Trojan horse through which the studios began to reassert their power."[38] Author Thomas Schatz also wrote on the film's impact: "If any single film marked the arrival of the New Hollywood, it was Jaws,
the Spielberg-directed thriller that recalibrated the profit potential
of the Hollywood hit, and redefined its status as a marketable commodity
and cultural phenomenon as well. The film brought an emphatic end to
Hollywood's five-year recession, while ushering in an era of high-cost,
high-tech, high-speed thrillers."[38] Following the success of Jaws,
major studio films have almost universally been distributed and
marketed on a national scale. In addition, when summer was usually a
season to dump films likely to be poor performers, the success of Jaws caused studios to shift their action and thriller films out of winter releases.[38]
When Jaws was released on June 20, 1975, it opened at 464 theaters.[39]
The release was subsequently expanded on July 25 to a total of 675
theaters, the largest simultaneous distribution of a film in motion
picture history at the time. During the first weekend of wide release, Jaws grossed more than $7 million, and was the top grosser for the following five weeks.[40] During its run in theaters, the film beat the $89 million domestic rental record of the reigning box-office champion, The Exorcist, becoming the first film to reach more than $100 million in U.S. box office receipts.[35][41]
Jaws eventually grossed more than $470 million worldwide ($1.9 billion in 2010 dollars[42]) and was the highest grossing box office film until Star Wars debuted two years later.[43][44] It is currently the 92nd highest grossing film of all time.[44] Jaws and Star Wars are retrospectively considered to have marked the beginning of the new business model in American filmmaking and the beginning of the end of the New Hollywood period.
[edit] Critical reception
The film received universal aclaim. It holds a rare 100% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.[45] In his original review, Roger Ebert
called it "a sensationally effective action picture, a scary thriller
that works all the better because it's populated with characters that
have been developed into human beings".[46] Variety's A.D. Murphy praised Spielberg's directorial skills, and called Robert Shaw's performance "absolutely magnificent".[47] Pauline Kael called it "the most cheerfully perverse scare movie ever made... [with] more zest than an early Woody Allen picture, a lot more electricity, [and] it's funny in a Woody Allen sort of way".[48] Frank Rich of The New York Times
wrote "Spielberg is blessed with a talent that is absurdly absent from
most American filmmakers these days: this man actually knows how to tell
a story on screen. ... It speaks well of this director's gifts that
some of the most frightening sequences in Jaws are those where we don't even see the shark.[49]
The film was not without its detractors. Vincent Canby, of The New York Times,
said "It's a measure of how the film operates that not once do we feel
particular sympathy for any of the shark's victims...In the best films,
characters are revealed in terms of the action. In movies like Jaws,
characters are simply functions of the action. They're at its service.
Characters are like stage hands who move props around and deliver
information when it's necessary", but also noted that "It's the sort of
nonsense that can be a good deal of fun".[50] Los Angeles Times critic Charles Champlin disagreed with the film's PG rating, saying that "Jaws
is too gruesome for children, and likely to turn the stomach of the
impressionable at any age." He goes on to say: "It is a coarse-grained
and exploitative work which depends on excess for its impact. Ashore it
is a bore, awkwardly staged and lumpily written."[51] The most widespread criticism of the film is the artificiality of the mechanical shark.[52]
[edit] Accolades
Jaws won Academy Awards for Film Editing, Music (Original Score) and Sound.[53] It was also nominated for Best Picture, losing to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.[54] In 2008, Jaws was selected by Empire magazine as the fifth greatest film ever made.[55] Quint was also placed at #50 on Empire's list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.[56] In 2003, The New York Times included the film on its list of the best 1000 movies ever made.[57] In 2010, Total Film selected the film as one of The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.[58] Jaws was number 48 on American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies, a list of the greatest American films of all time, dropping down to number 56 on the 10 Year Anniversary list.[59] It was ranked second on a similar list for thrillers, 100 Years... 100 Thrills.[60] Jaws was number one in the Bravo network's five-hour miniseries The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004).[61] Similarly, the Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 6th scariest film ever made.[62] The shark was anointed number 18 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains.[63]
In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film
"culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.[64]
In 2005, the American Film Institute voted Roy Scheider's line "You're
gonna need a bigger boat" as number 35 on its list of the top 100 movie quotes.[65] John Williams's score was ranked at number six on AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores.[66] In 2006, the screenplay of Jaws was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the 63rd best screenplay of all time.[67]
[edit] Inspirations and influences
"JAWS" on display at Universal Studios
Jaws bears similarities to several literary and artistic works, most notably Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. The character of Quint strongly resembles Captain Ahab, the obsessed captain of the Pequod who devotes his life to hunting a sperm whale. Quint's monologue reveals his similar vendetta against sharks, and even his boat, the Orca, is named after the only natural enemy of the white shark.
In the novel and original screenplay, Quint dies after being dragged
under the ocean by a harpoon tied to his leg, similar to Ahab's death in
Melville's novel.[68]
A direct reference to these similarities may be found in the original
screenplay, which introduced Quint by showing him watching the film version of Moby-Dick.[69] His laughter throughout makes people get up and leave the theater (Wesley Strick's screenplay for Cape Fear features a similar scene). However, the scene from Moby-Dick could not be licensed from Gregory Peck, the owner of the rights.[70] In the novel and original screenplay, when the Orca, like the Pequod,
is sunk by the creature, only the character of Brody survives. Some
have also noticed the influences of two 1950s horror films, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Monster That Challenged the World.[71]
Critics such as Neil Sinyard have noticed similarities to Henrik Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People.[72]
The Ibsen work features a doctor who discovers that a seaside town's
medicinal hot springs, a major tourist attraction and form of revenue,
are contaminated. When the doctor attempts to convince the townspeople
of the danger, he loses his job and is shunned. This plotline is
paralleled in Jaws by Brody's conflict with Mayor Vaughn, who
refuses to acknowledge the presence of a shark that may dissuade summer
beachgoers from coming to Amity. In the film, Brody is vindicated when
more shark attacks occur at the crowded beach in broad daylight. Sinyard
calls the film a "deft combination of Watergate and Ibsen's play".[72]
Jaws was a key film in establishing the benefits of a wide
national release backed by heavy media advertising, rather than a
progressive release that let a film slowly enter new markets and build
support over a period of time.[73]
Rather than let the film gain notice by word-of-mouth, Hollywood
launched a successful television marketing campaign for the film, which
added another $700,000 to the cost.[24]
Similar to the fear of showers created by the pivotal scene in the 1960 film Psycho, Jaws caused many viewers to be afraid to enter the ocean.[74][75] The film was credited with reduced beach attendance in the summer of 1975.[52]
Although it is considered a thriller-horror classic, the film is
widely recognized as being responsible for perpetuating negative
stereotypes about sharks and their behavior.[76]
Author Peter Benchley stated that he would not have written the
original novel had he known what sharks are really like in the wild.[77] Benchley later wrote Shark Trouble, a non-fiction book about shark behavior, and Shark Life,
another non-fiction book describing his dives with sharks. Conservation
groups have bemoaned the fact that the film has made it considerably
harder to convince the public that sharks should be protected.[78]
Jaws set the template for many future horror films, so much so that the script for Ridley Scott's 1979 science fiction film Alien was pitched to studio executives with one tag line: "Jaws in space."[79]
John Williams contributed the film score, which was ranked sixth on the American Film Institute's 100 Years of Film Scores. The main "shark" theme, a simple alternating pattern of two notes, E and F,[80] became a classic piece of suspense music, synonymous with approaching danger (see leading-tone).
Williams described the theme as having the "effect of grinding away at
you, just as a shark would do, instinctual, relentless, unstoppable."[81] The soundtrack piece was performed by tuba player Tommy Johnson.
When asked by Johnson why the melody was written in such a high
register and not played by the more appropriate French horn, Williams
responded that he wanted it to sound "a little more threatening".[82]
When the piece was first played for Spielberg, he was said to have
laughed at Williams, thinking that it was a joke. Spielberg later said
that without Williams' score the film would have been only half as
successful, and Williams acknowledges that the score jumpstarted his
career.[17] He had previously scored Spielberg's feature film debut The Sugarland Express and went on to collaborate with him on almost all of his films.[81]
The score contains echoes of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, particularly the opening of "The Adoration of the Earth" and "Auguries of Spring".[83] The music has drawn comparisons to Bernard Herrman's score for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and the ominous music for the off-screen hunter in Bambi, in which the music enhances the presence of an unseen terror, in this case the shark.[84]
There are various interpretations of the meaning and effectiveness of
the theme. Some have thought the two-note expression is intended to
mimic the shark's heartbeat, beginning slow and controlled as the killer
hunts and rising to a frenzied, shrieking climax as it approaches its
prey.[85]
Others have stated that the music at first sounds like the creaking and
groaning of a boat, and therefore is inaudible when it begins so that
it never seems to start, but simply rises out of the sounds of the film.
One critic believes the true strength of the score is its ability to
create a "harsh silence", abruptly cutting away from the music right
before it climaxes.[84] Furthermore, the audience is conditioned to associate the shark with its theme, since the score is never used as a red herring.[81]
It only plays when the real shark appears. This is later exploited when
the shark suddenly appears with no musical introduction. Regardless of
the meaning behind it, the theme is widely acknowledged as one of the
most recognized scores of all time.[52]
The original soundtrack for Jaws
was released by MCA in 1975, and as a CD in 1992, including roughly a
half hour of music that John Williams redid for the album. In 2000, two
versions of the score were released: one in a re-recording of the entire
Jaws score performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conducted by Joel McNeely;
and another to coincide with the release of the 25th anniversary DVD by
Decca/Universal, featuring the entire 51 minutes of the original score.
Many fans prefer the Decca release over the Varèse Sarabande
re-recording.[86]
[edit] Releases, sequels and merchandise
Universal "devised and co-ordinated a highly innovative plan" for the first film's distribution and exhibition.[33]
The studio and publisher Bantam designed a logo which would appear on
both the paperback and on all film advertising. "Both publisher and
distributor recognized the mutual benefits that a joint promotion
strategy would bring."[33] Producers Zanuck and Brown toured six cities to promote the paperback and the film.[33]
Once the film was released, more merchandising was created, including
shark-illustrated swimming towels and T-shirts, plastic shark fins for
swimmers to wear, and shark-shaped inflatables for them to float on. The
Ideal Toy Company produced a game where the player had to use a hook to fish out items from the shark's mouth before the jaws closed.[87]
The first Laserdisc title marketed in North America was the MCA DiscoVision release of Jaws
in 1978. A second Laserdisc was released in 1991, before a third and
final release came under the MCA/Universal Home Video's "Signature
Collection" imprint in 1995. This release was an elaborate boxset, which
included the film, along with deleted scenes and outtakes, a new
two-hour documentary on the making of the film, a copy of the novel Jaws, and a CD of John Williams' soundtrack. A year after its MCA DiscoVision
release, it returned to theaters for a special 2 week limited
engagement. It was also released on VHS by MCA Home Video in the mid-80s
and in 1995 by MCA Universal Home Video as a Collector's Edition
featuring a Making-of retrospective. MCA Universal Home Video released
it on VHS again in 1997 as a THX-certified Special Widescreen Edition
featuring a 10-minute special introduction at the beginning of the tape
which was shown previously on the 1995 VHS.[88]
Jaws was first released on DVD in 2000 for the film's 25th
anniversary. It featured a 50-minute documentary on the making of the
film (an edited version of the one featured on the 1995 laserdisc
release), with interviews from Steven Spielberg, Roy Scheider, Richard
Dreyfuss, Peter Benchley and other cast and crew members. Other extras
included deleted scenes, outtakes, trailers, production photos, and
storyboards.[88] In June 2005, on the 30th anniversary of the film's release, a festival named JawsFest was held in Martha's Vineyard.[89] Jaws
was then re-released on DVD, this time including the full two-hour
documentary produced by Laurent Bouzereau for the LaserDisc. As well as
containing most of the same bonus features the previous DVD contained,
it included a previously unavailable interview with Spielberg conducted
on the set of Jaws in 1974.[90]
In the 2000s, an independent group of fans produced a feature length documentary. The Shark is Still Working
features interviews with a range of cast and crew from the film, and
some from the sequels. It is narrated by Roy Scheider and dedicated to
Peter Benchley who died in 2006.[91][92]
The film spawned three sequels, all of which failed to match the
success of the original. Indeed, their combined domestic grosses barely
cover half of the original's.[40] Spielberg was unavailable to do a sequel, as he was working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind with Richard Dreyfuss.[54] Jaws 2 was directed by Jeannot Szwarc;
Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary and Murray Hamilton reprised their roles
from the original film. It is generally regarded as the best of the
sequels. The next film, Jaws 3-D, directed by Joe Alves, was released in the 3-D format, although the effect did not transfer to television or home video, where it was renamed Jaws 3. Dennis Quaid as Michael Brody and Louis Gossett, Jr. starred in the movie. Jaws: The Revenge, directed by Joseph Sargent, featured the return of Lorraine Gary and is considered one of the worst movies ever made.[93][94] While all three sequels made a profit at the box office (Jaws 2 and Jaws 3-D
are among the top 20 highest-grossing films of their respective years),
critics and audiences were generally dissatisfied with the films.[95][96][97]
In February 2010, film website Cinema Blend reported that a source from Universal Pictures has indicated that Universal is "strongly considering" remaking Jaws in 3-D, following the commercial success of Avatar.[98] The source also reported that 30 Rock star Tracy Morgan was considered to portray Matt Hooper in the remake, which they say could be more comedic and make more use of special effects.[99] The studio has not officially commented upon the rumor.[100][101] Aristocrat made an officially licensed slot machine based on the movie.
[edit] Adaptations
The film has been adapted into two video games, two theme park rides at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Japan,[102][103] and two musicals: JAWS The Musical!, which premiered in the summer of 2004 at the Minnesota Fringe Festival; and Giant Killer Shark: The Musical, which premiered in the summer of 2006 at the Toronto Fringe Festival.[104] |
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