On this day in 1975, Jaws, a film directed by Steven Spielberg that made countless viewers afraid to go into the water, opens in theaters. The story of a great white shark that terrorizes a New England resort town became an instant blockbuster and the highest-grossing film in movie history until it was bested by 1977’s Star Wars. Jaws was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Picture category and took home three Oscars, for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score and Best Sound. The film, a breakthrough for director Spielberg, then 27 years old, spawned three sequels.
The film starred Roy Scheider as principled police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as a marine biologist named Matt Hooper and Robert Shaw as a grizzled fisherman called Quint. It was set in the fictional beach town of Amity, and based on a best-selling novel, released in 1973, by Peter Benchley. Subsequent water-themed Benchley bestsellers also made it to the big screen, including The Deep (1977).
With a budget of $12 million, Jaws was produced by the team of Richard Zanuck and David Brown, whose later credits include The Verdict (1982), Cocoon (1985) and Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Filming, which took place on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, was plagued by delays and technical difficulties, including malfunctioning mechanical sharks.
Jaws put now-famed director Steven Spielberg on the Hollywood map. Spielberg, largely self-taught in filmmaking, made his feature-length directorial debut with The Sugarland Express in 1974. The film was critically well-received but a box-office flop. Following the success of Jaws, Spielberg went on to become one of the most influential, iconic people in the film world, with such epics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), ET: the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). E.T., Jaws and Jurassic Park rank among the 10 highest-grossing movies of all time. In 1994, Spielberg formed DreamWorks SKG, with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. The company has produced such hits as American Beauty (1999), Gladiator (2001) and Shrek (2001).
Everything I know about the ocean I learned from Jules Verne.
But
Everything I need to know about the ocean I learned from Jaws.
I remember it well.I was 17 and went to see it with a bunch of my buddies.
It’s still one of my favorite clean stories to tell.”Joe”,one of the guys from the neighborhood,was about 6’2″ and already over 200 lbs.
When Jaws came up that first time and scared the s out of everybody,this big macho guy tucked his legs up under himself in the seat and never put them back down the rest of the movie.
We rag on him to this day and he denies it to this day.
I was 13 and went to see it with my friends. The entire theater jumped simultaneously during this scene:
I knew what was coming and it still scared the crap out of me.
Love this scene.
Benchley’s novel was loosely based on the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks. One of several times when the true story was more unsettling than the fictionalized version.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150702-shark-attack-jersey-shore-1916-great-white/
The amazing phenomena resulting from this film is that suddenly everyone realized that there are sharks in the water. Having grown up on Florida beaches surfing and fishing, I could only laugh. Even so, many of my friends and acquaintances were now afraid of the water. Go figure. I was more cautious about jelly fish and Men-O-War than sharks. Oh, and jumping off a surfboard onto a catfish…man, did that hurt for hours. Nonetheless, that film kept me on the edge of my seat.