The Making of a Classic...JAWS If you take a look at Benchleys 1974 bestseller the cover image of the shark has more in common with a condom with a big grin on its face. still producers Richard D Zanuck and David Brown who read an early draft of this novel in 73 saw something potentially huge in it, although they would later admit if they read it a second time then it probably would never have been made. It would take an extraordinary director with huge visionary to bring this project to the big screen. Universal bought the rights for a sum of 175.00 just before the books publication. The novel when released was an instant bestseller staying in the charts for 44 weeks. Steven Spielberg saw similarities between Jaws and his last film Dual and was hired as director, at 26 years of age he later admitted that if this film sank then so did his career. he even admitted that he didnt expect anyone to see the movie. The novel was based around the Shark attacks of New Jersey in the 40s where it is believed a rouge shark was responsible for the deaths of some swimmers. Benchley wrote the first couple of drafts with Carl Gottieb who later re-wrote the the script during principal production. Actors Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw were all bought in to bring the characters from page to screen to life. With a budget of 3.5 million and a 55 day shoot ahead there was little time to ponder, just shoot. Unfortunately the shark nicknamed Bruce had other ideas causing many delays in production by breaking down causing the film to go over budget. Steven Spielberg had a love/hate relationship with his main cast, he hated it while in production but once the film was out and the pennies came rolling in it was a love relationship. Spielberg was adamant that he change some of the story, he cut out the growing love affair between Matt Hooper and Ellen Brody and trimmed down the soup opera style story to make the film keep its focus on the shark. What he also managed to do that so many others have used since was the use of building up the suspense by not actually showing the shark til half way through. It was a film in two halfs, the first half about a small town and the affects of the shark attacks and the second half about the relationship of three men who go after the killer shark. Jaws was released in June 75 and was the biggest film financially of all time til a small film called star Wars came along a couple of years later. By then jaws had set out world domination, it had managed to cause a very different reaction to sharks, had certainly kept people out of the water and with John Williams popular score had hidden many families behind the sofa. The big summer blockbusters had started and Jaws was the one that started it all. We were gonna need a bigger boat.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 20:15:35 +0000
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