Written by James Rose

Steven Spielberg was not film producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown's first choice to direct Jaws. They had bought the film rights to Peter Benchley's best-selling novel of the same name a year before its publication and, although unsure of exactly how to make a film about a 25 foot Great White shark eating tourists, they first considered acclaimed veteran director John Sturges to helm the production but, instead offered the job to Dick Richards. While Richard's was both excited about the film and committed to its production, he would frequently refer to the shark as a whale. Such was the extent of this that Zanuck and Brown lost faith in Richards and removed him from the production. At this time, Spielberg had just made his feature film debut with The Sugarland Express (1974) for Zanuck and Brown. Learning that Richard's had been dropped, he expressed an interest in directing the film to the producers by noting the similarity between Benchley's novel and Duel (1971), the made-for-TV movie he had directed prior to Sugarland Express. But, if he were to direct the film, it would have to be under certain conditions: having read Benchley's novel, Spielberg only liked the novel's last act, the hunt for the shark. He wanted this aspect to be the film's focus, meaning the first two acts of the novel would be dropped and replaced with original scripted material that would set up the characters, the tensions, and various shark attacks. Zanuck and Brown agreed with Spielberg's approach and, after allocating a budget of $3.5 million and a shooting schedule of 55 days, signed the young director to the production June 1973.

Scripting the Shark

When Zanuck and Brown purchased the film rights to the novel, they also agreed that Benchley would write the first draft of the screenplay. Benchley would become the first of many writers to be involved in the film's ever-evolving script; having written three full drafts that adapted his novel as well as adding the new material Spielberg required, Benchley declined to work further on the project. Without a writer to progress the script further, Spielberg began writing a full draft himself. While he was not satisfied with what he had written, Spielberg now clearly understood his approach to the story and, at the suggestion of Zanuck and Brown, asked award-winning playwriter Howard Sackler to work on the script. While Sackler could only work on the script for a limited time, he added a number of Spielberg's developing ideas for the film, most notably making the hero, Police Chief Martin Brody, afraid of the water and altering the manner in which the Great White shark dies. In the novel, it succumbs to multiple harpoon wounds that have been inflicted by grizzled shark hunter Quint. Spielberg felt that this would not make for a particularly spectacular climax and decided that exploding a scuba diving tank in its mouth would be a far more visually spectacular means by which to kill the shark. Alongside these changes, Sackler added a number of his own. One of these, a small background addition to one of the characters, would develop to become part of the film's ongoing legacy. When completing a dialogue pass, Sackler wrote into Quint's script that he was a survivor of the USS Indianapolis. Recognised as one of the worse US Naval disasters in history, the event is known in part because of the vessels secret mission to deliver the components and volatile materials for the atomic bomb and in part because of its torpedoing in shark-infested waters. As Quint states in his now legendary speech, “eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June 29th, 1945.”

Without a Script, without a Cast…

While the script was being constantly developed, casting the principal actors was proving to be as equally difficult. Spielberg wanted to cast relatively lesser-known actors in order to stimulate greater connection between the characters and the audience. As a result, when Charlton Heston expressed an interest in playing the role of Brody, he was turned down. For this part, Spielberg's first choice was Robert Duvall, but he declined, wanting only to play Quint. Roy Scheider was cast when he discussed the production with Spielberg at a party. With Brody cast, the other actors who were either considered or approached for the roles of Quint and Oceanographer Matt Hooper – Lee Marvin and Sterling Hayden for Quint and Jon Voight, Jan Michael-Vincent and Jeff Bridges for Hooper – were either rejected or declined themselves when offered the part. With nine days to go before the first day of shooting, neither Quint nor Hooper had been cast. Zanuck and Brown suggested the role of Quint be played by Robert Shaw (who had recently worked for the producers on George Roy Hill's Sting [1973]). Despite not liking the book, Shaw took the role at the urging of both his wife and personal assistant. Spielberg discussed casting Jaws with his close friend George Lucas who suggested Richard Dreyfuss for the part of Hooper. When approached to consider the role, Dreyfuss was skeptical about a film that focussed on a tourist-eating shark but, having been horrified by watching his own performance in his latest film, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Ted Kotcheff, 1974), quickly accepted the role. With the film now cast but with a script that was still in development, the production team moved into the film's principal location, the small island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and began to prepare for the first day of filming, May 2, 1974.

…Without a Shark

It is perhaps the most well-known aspect of the making of Jaws that its star, the 25 foot Great White Shark, very rarely worked properly. Three full sized sharks were created by art director/production designer Joe Alves, each using a system of pneumatics that required 14 operators to control. One of these sharks was built to be towed along an underwater track system while the other two were designed to perform the various movements and actions the script demanded. Due to a combination of saltwater intake, failing mechanics, the shark's skin corroding, and the underwater tracks jamming with seaweed, the three sharks would continuously breakdown. Alongside this were the problems of filming on the ocean, the unpredictability of the weather as well as shots being unusable due to pleasure boats appearing on the horizon, the production begin to move towards going drastically over schedule and budget: the $3.5 million steadily rose to an estimated $9 million while the allocated 55 day shoot took 159 days. This would become an unsettling first for Spielberg who, through Hollywood rumour, heard his career was in jeopardy as no one had gone 100 days over schedule before.

With the sharks not working, Spielberg was forced to rethink his approach to directing – without the sharks, he had nothing to show the audience so, through a combination of a singular dorsal fin, point of view shots and the floating yellow barrels Quint shoots into the fish coupled with John Williams now famous theme music, Spielberg was able to imply the presence of the shark, creating an ominous and relentless force of Nature that was all the more powerful and all the more frightening precisely because it couldn't be seen; the threat, “all 3 tonnes” of him as Quint comments, remains below the surface, hidden amongst the waves. When the shark does appear – like when it glides, just below the ocean's surface, past the boat, or when it lurches up and out whilst Brody throws bait into the sea – it is all the more powerful because of this. The unseen becomes momentarily seen as dull grey flanks splattered with blood, jagged fins or as a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.

The Summer of the Shark

Following a number of positive test screenings, Spielberg's final cut of Jaws was refined and prepared for national distribution. To promote the film, Universal invested a further $1.8 million in marketing, a significant portion of which went into prime time television advertising in the lead up to the film's release. This was coupled with broad merchandising – including a re-release of the original novel, a making of book, t-shirts, beach blankets, games and shark tooth necklaces – all adding to the growing hype. On June 20, 1975, Jaws was released simultaneous across 464 cinemas in the United States and Canada. This, along with the extensive advertising and merchandising, resulted in a record $7 million weekend revenue and would go on to gross a record $21,116,354 in first 10 days of release: within that first week and a half, the film had recouped its vast production budget and much, much more.

Now celebrating its 50^th anniversary, Jaws is considered to be a masterpiece of contemporary Hollywood cinema. Despite its many production problems, Jaws firmly announced Spielberg as a gifted film maker alongside establishing saturation distribution and merchandising as a means to ensure recuperation of budget and to earn profit. It also marked the arrival of the Hollywood High Concept Summer Blockbuster – films with few characters, a simple plot and plenty of action to engage the young audience. So effective where these elements that terrifying Great White sharks, the film's theme music and its defining quote of “we're gonna need a bigger boat” have entered into Western cultural consciousness. There they remain, forever celebrating one of greatest films ever made.