Jaws!!
The movie that came to define Summer Blockbuster hits theaters 50 years ago today!
June 20, 1975
The movie Jaws is released by Universal Pictures on this date, breaking box office records, making director Steven Spielberg famous, and establishing the tradition of the summer blockbuster action movie. Before Jaws movies were released only in several markets and then slowly released across the country as support for the movie grew. Jaws changed that by opening in hundreds of theaters simultaneously, backed by massive TV advertising. The movie was so successful that other film studios quickly followed suit and the Summer Blockbuster was born!
Here are a few fun facts about the movie.
It was originally intended to have more shark scenes, but the mechanical shark kept malfunctioning, so Spielberg chose to simply suggest the shark's presence while playing the now famous music created by composer John Williams. The only notes used to produce the sound are E and F.
The film was based on the book by Peter Benchley, who got the idea from a series of shark attacks that occurred off the coast of New Jersey in 1916. Benchley has a cameo in the film as the news reporter on the beach.
Originally intended to be released for Christmas 1974, Jaws was marred with so many technical problems (including the shark not working and shooting in the Atlantic Ocean) that the originally scheduled 65-day shoot ballooned into 159 days, not counting post-production.
Jaws was the first movie to gross over $100 million at the box office. It was the highest grossing movie of all time until Star Wars was released two years later.
Chief Brody’s famous line “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” was entirely improvised by Roy Scheider on the day of shooting—and based on an inside joke within the production cast.
The Brody family dog in Jaws was named Elmer and belonged to Steven Spielberg.
"I'm almost ten!" That's what I vigorously proclaimed to my Mom and Dad when my Aunt Glenda ask them if I could go with her to see the movie Jaws. My birthday is in September, so I was technically 9 years and 9 months old when Jaws came out. My Aunt Glenda had already seen the movie and was taking her niece and one of her friends to see it. She told my parents that she would cover my eyes during the "bad parts" and that sealed the deal. Of course, I would not let her cover my eyes because I wanted to see the "whole thing." She smiled and said okay. I almost spilled my Coke when the head rolled out the bottom. No lie, my reaction was visceral.
I remember immediately reading the book to see all the "changes" that had been made between the film and the story Peter Benchley had written. It was the first time I ever thought of writing a story on my own.
While there were certainly trips to the movie theater before Jaws, they are all lost to memory. Jaws is the first movie I remember seeing on the Silver Screen, and can still remember everything about that experience today. Anything that came before was immediately swept from memory. That's how you know it was a classic.
I think "Jaws" is one of the best movies ever made. The reason it's not just another "monster" movie (with the shark being the monster) is that the mechanical shark didn't work, creating the need to create all the scenes that make the movie great.
Another great scene that wasn't in the original script was the scene where the three characters talk about all of their shark injuries and Quint tells his "back story" of being a crew member of the USS Indianapolis.
I think about the scene where the mother of the little boy who was killed on the float slaps Chief Brody and tells him, "You knew. You knew there was a shark and you still let people go into the water."
The mayor, an interesting character himself, tells Bodie, "She's wrong." And Chief Brody replies, "no, she's not."
That's what happened - write large - in Covid. Every "authority figure" knew what was happening - that people were being killed - and they did nothing to stop it. They all KNEW.