Incredibly, the film that launched Steven Spielberg’s illustrious career initially looked like it would sink it.
Spielberg is widely regarded as the greatest film director in history. The 79-year-old directed Hollywood classics like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the first four films of the iconic Harrison Ford Indiana Jones movie series.
In 1974, Spielberg signed on to direct a new shark film from Universal Studios. Spielberg, then 27, was far from a household name in Hollywood at the time.
That film, titled Jaws, was based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. Set in the fictional New England town of Amity Island, Jaws starred Roy Scheider (police chief Martin Brody), Robert Shaw (Quint, a professional shark hunter) and Richard Dreyfuss (marine biologist Matt Hooper).
Despite a series of fatal shark attacks, Amity Island mayor Larry Vaughn refuses to close the beaches. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Jaws follows Brodie, Quint and Hooper as they attempt to “capture the killer beast, and the trio engage in an epic battle of man vs. nature.”
Jaws holds a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and holds up as one of the greatest horror movies ever. It won the Academy Awards for Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Sound (Roger Heman, Robert Hoyt, Earl Madery, and John R. Carter) and Best Editing (Verna Fields).
Expectations For ‘Jaws’ Were Very Low
(Photo by Universal Studios/Courtesy of Getty Images)
As hard as it is to believe now, expectations were minimal for Jaws when it hit theaters in the summer of 1975.
The film went well over budget and way past the planned shooting schedule. The mechanical shark used in the film repeatedly malfunctioned and sank to the bottom of the ocean.
Making over $470 million at the global box office, Jaws became the highest-grossing film in history up to that point, until the first Star Wars movie (1977) smashed the record.
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