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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Is 'Jaws' Based on a True Story? All About the Thriller's Inspiration in Honor of Its 50th Anniversary
Jaws was released in theaters on June 20, 1975 The thriller was based on the best-selling book by Peter Benchley There are similarities between the events in Jaws and a series of shark attacks in 1916Just when it looked safe to go back in the water, Jaws is circling back toward the shore for its 50th anniversary on June 20. In the half-century since its release, few movies have had more impact than Jaws. It birthed the summer blockbuster, cemented director Steven Spielberg as one of Hollywood's great talents, and it made beachgoers everywhere afraid to frolic in the ocean. The memorable production of Jaws has become infamous over the decades, with it being recounted in books and even adapted into a stage play. "Jaws was a fun movie to watch but not a fun movie to make. It was made under the worst of conditions," Spielberg said in the book, Spielberg: The First Ten Years, per Vanity Fair. "People versus the eternal sea. The sea won the battle — but where we won was with audiences in every country." Fifty years later, Jaws is a cinematic classic, but is the terrifying shark tale true? Here's what to know about the inspiration behind the monster movie that unlocked a new fear of the mysterious oceans. No, the movie Jaws is not a true story, and neither is Benchley's novel, which was the basis of the film. The writer was fascinated with sharks after spotting them during childhood fishing trips with his father on Nantucket. While working on the book, Benchley cited a 1964 article he read about Frank Mundus, a fisherman who caught a great white shark off the coast of Montauk, N.Y. Though, according to The New York Times, Benchley denied that Mundus was the inspiration for the character, Quint. "I had been thinking for years about a story about a shark that attacks people and what would happen if it came in and wouldn't go away," the author recalled in the 1995 documentary about the making of Jaws. According to Audible, Benchley was a freelance journalist who was commissioned to write Jaws in 1971. The book was released about three years later and became a literary sensation, spending 44 weeks on the bestseller list. No specific event inspired Jaws, but there are similarities to a series of shark attacks on the Jersey Shore in 1916. Between July 1 and July 12 of that year, five people were attacked by a shark, with one surviving. The incidents occurred in the resort towns of Beach Haven and Spring Lake. It also happened in Matawan Creek, 30 miles north of Spring Lake. During a 2012 interview with the Smithsonian Magazine, ichthyologist George Burgess said it was the 'most unique set of shark attacks that ever have occurred.' Although there are coincidences between the New Jersey attacks and the ones in Jaws, Benchley stated that his work was not inspired by the events in 1916, per The New York Times. No, Amity Island, where Jaws takes place, is not real. While the fictional Amity Island is located off Long Island in New York in the Jaws novel, it was actually inspired by Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, where the movie was filmed. Jaws was shot in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard, and the town is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the movie this summer with various events, including an outdoor film screening, with the movie's iconic score performed by the Cape Symphony. Yes, Quint's harrowing speech recounting the sinking of the USS Indianapolis was based on an actual event, one that has been called "the worst shark attack in history." On July 30, 1945, in the final weeks of World War II, a Japanese submarine torpedoed the USS Indianapolis in the Philippine Sea. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, the ship sank in 12 minutes, and out of the 1,196 men aboard, about 900 survived and were thrown into the water. As the sailors floated in the ocean waiting to be rescued, sharks were attracted by the explosions and blood in the water. Loel Dean Cox, who survived the disaster, told BBC News in 2013, 'Every now and then, like lightning, [a shark] would come straight up and take a sailor and take him straight down. One came up and took the sailor next to me. It was just somebody screaming, yelling or getting bit." On August 3, the USS Cecil J. Doyle rescued the remaining survivors from the water. Ultimately, only 316 men out of the ship's original 1,196-man crew remained alive. The number of sailors who died from shark attacks ranges from "a few dozen to more than 150." Despite the events depicted in Jaws — and its sequels — great white shark attacks are rare. According to Outdoor Life, per findings from the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File, since 1580, "there have been 949 unprovoked shark attacks documented around the world." Out of those attacks, 351 involved great white sharks, with 59 being fatal. In February 2025, the International Shark Attack File reported that shark attacks decreased in 2024. "Worldwide, there were only 47 unprovoked attacks, down 22 from the previous year and well below the 10-year average of 70." Read the original article on People
CBS News
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
"Jaws" turns 50! Test your knowledge of the classic Martha's Vineyard movie
Friday marks the 50th anniversary of "Jaws." It remains one of the most beloved and rewatched movies of all time. But how good is your knowledge of the some of lore surrounding Steven Spielberg's 1975 masterpiece? Read on and see how much you know about "Jaws." What was the nickname given to the shark? Spielberg named his mechanical shark "Bruce," after his attorney, Bruce Ramer. Where did the title come from? When author Peter Benchley's 1974 book was going to print, he needed to choose a title. He has juggled various titles - "Leviathan Rising," "Silent Fall" - before, at the last minute, choosing "Jaws." What did it mean? Benchley, himself, wasn't sure, he told his editor, but it was short. What's the origin of the iconic movie poster? The image of the rising shark came from the cover of the novel's paperback edition, illustrated by Roger Kastel. For his painting, Kastel went to the American Museum of Natural History to photograph a great white shark from a diorama that was laying on an easel. What was the inspiration for Amity? Though Spielberg shot "Jaws" on Martha's Vineyard, off Cape Cod, it was the neighboring island, Nantucket, that inspired Benchley's novel. He has spent time fishing there with his father. In the book, the fictional Amity is on the south shore of Long Island. Who was first attached to direct "Jaws"? Dick Richards was initially in line to direct the film, but producer Richard D. Zanuck said he lost the job after, in a meeting, repeatedly referring to the shark as a whale. How old was Spielberg when he began the project? 26. Who sought but was turned down the role of Brody? Charlton Heston wanted to play the Amity Island police chief, but Spielberg instead cast Roy Scheider. What's the name of Quint's boat? The Orca. Not coincidentally, two years after the massive success of "Jaws," a 1977 ripoff about a killer whale was released titled "Orca." What led to the shark often malfunctioning? Salt water. The shark, built by special effects artist Bob Mattey, would get corroded by the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean, leaving it unusable for times - particularly early in the filmmaking. Spielberg pivoted and instead doesn't show the shark until well into the film, an approach that ultimately led to a far more suspenseful film. Spielberg once estimated that Bruce's mechanical delays added $175 million to the movie's box office. How long into "Jaws" does the shark fully appear on screen? It's not until one hour and 21 minutes into the movie that we really see the shark. Was the movie's most iconic line scripted? No, Schieder adlibbed "You're gonna need a bigger boat." Screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, though, has said the line had been percolating on set. The size of the barge carrying equipment and craft services was often slighted by the crew who felt producers weren't spending enough. Gottlieb told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016: "It became a catchphrase for any time anything went wrong - if lunch was late or the swells were rocking the camera, someone would say, 'You're gonna need a bigger boat.'" What disaster was Quint a survivor of? The sinking of the USS Indianapolis, the U.S. Navy cruiser torpedoed by a Japanese submarine during World War II. Quint's lengthy and memorably speech in the film wasn't in the novel but was, according to Spielberg, penned by the uncredited screenwriter John Milius. Spielberg wanted a backstory to why Quint hated sharks so much. Though debate has continued over the years over who wrote the monologue, everyone has agreed Shaw synthesized it, and deserves most of the credit for the scene's power. Does Spielberg appear in "Jaws?" The director isn't seen in the film but his voice is heard. During the finale of the film when Quint is readying the harpoon, it's Spielberg's voice on the radio. He says: "This is Amity point light-station to Orca. Orca, come in." Spielberg shows up in a couple other ways, too. A clarinetist in high school, he plays briefly on Williams' score. And Brody's dogs were Spielberg's cocker spaniels, Elmer and Zalman. (For his part, Benchley makes a cameo as a TV reporter during the July 4th beach scene.) How far over schedule did "Jaws" run? The production was scheduled for 55 days but took 159 days to complete. The budget also nearly tripled, to $9 million, plus $3 million more in post-production. Though "Jaws" become the prototype summer movie, it was originally expected to open around Christmastime the year before. What was "Jaws" rated? Though it caused some controversy, the Motion Picture Association of America gave "Jaws" a "PG" rating. At the time, there was no PG-13 rating. (That only began in 1984, with "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," after a handful of other Spielberg productions, including "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Gremlins" led to the new category.) Jack Valenti, then-president of the MPAA, defended the rating by arguing that "'Jaws' involved nature's violence, rather than man's violence against man," Valenti said. "This is the same kind of violence as in 'Hansel and Gretel.' Children might imitate other kinds of violence, but not the kind seen in 'Jaws.'" The movie's poster carried the warning: "MAY BE TOO INTENSE FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN." What did "Jaws" lose best picture to at the Academy Awards? "Jaws" was nominated for four Oscars and won three: best sound, best editing and best score for John Williams. The competition for best picture, though, was fierce. The nominees, alongside "Jaws," where "Dog Day Afternoon," "Barry Lyndon," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Nashville." The winner was "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It put the fear of God in the audience': the incredible story of how Jaws changed Hollywood
Half a century later, Richard Dreyfuss still won't go in the water. 'I have never done it, not since the film,' the Oscar-winning actor says, 'because you're totally aware of what you're not aware of and you're not aware of anything underneath.' The film is Jaws, whose release 50 years ago on 20 June marked a turning point in both the history of cinema and public perception of sharks. It was the movie that in effect invented the summer blockbuster, paving the way for Star Wars, Jurassic Park and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It cast sharks in the role of monsters to be feared and killed – but also stimulated interest in marine conservation. Based on a novel by Peter Benchley and directed by Steven Spielberg, Jaws tells the story of a great white shark terrorising the beach town of Amity Island, prompting police chief Martin Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper and grizzled fisherman Quint to hunt it down. It earned rave reviews from critics and became the first movie to take more than $100m in theatrical rentals. The three men on a boat were Dreyfuss (Hooper), Roy Scheider (Brody) and Robert Shaw (Quint) and the dynamic between them is central to the film's appeal. Today only Dreyfuss is left. Now, 77, sitting in a library at his home in San Diego, California, his memories remain lucid. 'First of all, you have to remember this is not 50 years later,' he says via Zoom. 'This is yesterday.' At first Dreyfuss turned the part down. 'At this lunch meeting he [Spielberg] illustrated the story very well, very vividly, and he said, did you like it? I said, oh, yes. He said, do you want to do it? I said, no, and he said, why? I said, because it's going to be a bitch to shoot. I at that moment was not looking for difficulties. I turned him down in that meeting and then I turned him down again.' But then Dreyfuss saw a rough cut of a film he had just made and thought his performance looked so bad that it might end his career. So he called Spielberg and begged him for the role. Once shooting got under way, it did not go as Dreyfuss had prophesied at that lunch meeting. 'One of the many things that I learned was that it was not a bitch to shoot at all. I would say that there was one word that characterised the shoot and that was waiting. More waiting than anything.' Despite the difficulty and cost, Spielberg insisted on shooting in the open ocean off Martha's Vineyard for the sake of authenticity. The budget ballooned from $4m to $9m. Production went 100 days over schedule and was plagued by the malfunctions of the mechanical shark (nicknamed 'Bruce' after Spielberg's lawyer). At the mention of this, Dreyfuss puts his hands to his mouth to mimic a loudspeaker: ''The shark is not working. The shark is not working. Repeat. The shark is not working.' And then one day you hear this. 'The shark is working! The shark is working!'' He recalls: 'There were three different sharks and three different crews that worked the shark and it was all a disaster. There's a line in the film where Robert says he had these eyes, these doll's eyes, and he did because they were doll's eyes! 'Steven had to conceive of a film which implied the shark rather than show it directly. That was the story of the shoot: the director, Steven, had to rework his conception of the entire movie because he knew he could not show it as brazenly or blatantly as he had assumed. That ultimately made the film a masterpiece.' Spielberg, who was in his mid-20s at the time, has credited director Alfred Hitchcock with influencing his less-is-more approach to building suspense. He also received a mighty lift from composer John Williams, whose two-note theme music initially seemed so simple that Spielberg thought it a joke until he realised its visceral menace. Dreyfuss comments: 'John is an extraordinary composer and it took him no time at all to create a sound picture that could carry the film. You don't see the shark first: you hear it. Under the credits you hear bar-dum, bar-dum, bar-dum, bar-dum and you're seeing that shark moving through the underbrush and I'm telling you, it put the fear of God in the audience and me and everybody.' The British film critic Mark Kermode has argued that Jaws is not about a shark. A case in point is a scene below deck in which Quint recalls how sharks ravaged survivors after the wartime sinking of the USS Indianapolis, providing Quint with a powerful motivation for his hatred of the animals. Enhanced by improvisation captured on tape recorders, it has been described by Spielberg as 'the scene that I'm proudest of in Jaws'. Shaw – who struggled with alcoholism for most of his life – made himself drunk for the scene but it backfired on the first take, Dreyfuss recalls. 'He lost control of himself and he was terribly embarrassed and that only made him drink more and so that day was a terrible humiliation for him. Because I was sitting next to him and in the shot, it was painful. 'That night he called Steven at two or three in the morning and said, how badly did I humiliate myself? Steven said, not fatally. He came in the next morning and he did the scene in one take and he was brilliant.' For decades there have been stories that the palpable tension between Hooper and Quint was not based on acting alone but mirrored personal animosity between Dreyfuss and Shaw. The alleged feud was explored in the recent play The Shark is Broken co-written by and starring Shaw's son Ian. Dreyfuss, however, is adamant this is a myth and one that pains him to this day. 'If you are aware of the stories in and around the filming, you know the 'discovery' of the feud between Robert and myself didn't exist for 25 years,' he says firmly. 'It was not the truth. It was not the fact of our relationship at all. Twenty-five years after the film was over, I found that there was this 'feud' between us. 'What there had been was one day where I was angry at him for stuff. It was one day. To a great extent what happened was that in order to jack up the stories about the film, they re-emphasized the story of this feud, which wasn't real and the people who did it knew it. I resented that for a long time but Robert was already dead by 15 years and there was nothing I could do. 'I cherished his memory and what I was learning from him and I'm not kidding about that. Robert was an extraordinary actor and an extraordinary writer and I could tell you a great number of stories about all of that. But I won't allow anyone to walk away from an interview with Richard Dreyfuss and think that there was reality to the feud.' He and Shaw had even made plans for a future collaboration, Dreyfuss adds. 'We were in the hold of the boat and we were both napping and all of a sudden Robert said, 'I know. I'll play the Ghost to your Hamlet if you play the Fool to my Lear.' I said, 'You've got it. But not for 10 years.' He said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because you'll eat me alive,' and he laughed and said, 'OK.' 'So we had an agreement to make those two pieces and unfortunately he died very quickly. That was a catastrophic feeling, a loss that I knew had changed my future. I could have taken willing advantage of that friendship and I was unable to.' When Dreyfuss first saw the finished cut of Jaws, it made a huge impression. He recalls: 'I was as terrified as if I had never experienced the making of this film. I was completely swept up in the story. It was so much an achievement of film-making and my friend Steven, who's sitting there – I knew that I was watching the crowning of the uncrowned prince of Hollywood.' The movie drew long queues at cinemas and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. 'There was, for the first time, an awareness of how a film could affect all of society. There was not one group, one country, one people who were immune to this. He happened upon something that was so ubiquitous and shared by all people. Wow! Although Steven did that a number of times afterwards in other films, it's easy to spot because of Jaws.' Dreyfuss has never again sat down to watch the whole of Jaws from start to finish, although if he chances on a TV showing that is already under way, he usually sticks with it to the end. And what of the three widely panned sequels? 'They should never have been made and I have absolutely no interest in seeing them. Never have and never will.' Dreyfuss, Shaw and Spielberg were not involved in Jaws 2, released in 1978, but it did star Scheider and Lorraine Gary, playing his wife Ellen Brody as she had in the first film. Gary is now 88 and living in Los Angeles. Speaking by phone, her memories of working with Scheider on Jaws are less than rosy. 'He was very much an isolated human at that point. He smoked; I hate cigarettes. He also spent a tremendous amount of time with one of those tin foil reflector pans, getting his tan. There was very little in common. Years later I was in New York and we ran into each other on Madison Avenue. We talked like real people at that point instead of actors on the set and it was fun – it was very professional.' Typically summer months were quiet for cinemas but Jaws was deliberately timed for when people were at beach resorts and accompanied by the tagline: 'See it before you go swimming!' The film opened on 464 screens in North America and was boosted by a major TV advertising campaign, still unusual at the time and marketing stunts such as themed ice-creams. Gottlieb once observed: 'That notion of selling a picture as an event, as a phenomenon, as a destination, was born with that release.' Did Gary have any sense that Jaws would be such a gamechanger? 'Absolutely not. No clue. It stunned me when it did, what it did and it stuns me now. Every day I get fan mail. I'm an 88-year-old woman. Come on, leave me alone! It's all very strange to me but luckily, it's fun.' Unlike Dreyfuss, the experience did not put her off swimming. Gary has gone scuba diving and come within five feet of a shark. 'I'm not scared of sharks,' she says. 'The only time I was scared by sharks was when I saw my sons and my grandchildren in the ocean and I thought, sooner or later there'll be payback, but there wasn't. I truly do not have a very strong feeling about hurting the reputation of sharks. They deserve to be known for who they are and what they do.' The film's impact on these ancient predators, which date back 450m years – longer than the dinosaurs – is complex and frequently debated. Its official trailer speaks of a 'mindless eating machine' that will 'attack and devour anything', adding: 'It is as if God created the devil and gave him jaws.' Small wonder Jaws instilled widespread fear of sharks, whose population has fallen dramatically since the early 1970s. Spielberg told BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 2022: 'I truly and to this day regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film. I really, truly regret that.' But the film also sparked engagement in marine science and conservation, a legacy actively pursued by the author Benchley, who died in 2006, and his wife Wendy, who is executive producer of a Nat Geo documentary, Jaws@50: The Definitive Inside Story. In a phone interview, Wendy, 84, comments: 'Jaws tapped into an innate fear of being eaten by a monster. It was a scary book and a scary movie but 90% of the people who read the book or saw the movie got over their fear; 10% never went back in the water.' Benchley had worked as a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson over the last two years of his presidency then wanted to get back to freelance writing. The couple were living in Pennington, New Jersey, with two young children and financial pressures but Benchley decided to try writing a book. He had two ideas, Wendy says. 'One was about current day pirates; one about a great white shark that hangs around a town and causes some mischief. I said, oh, honey, I don't think either of these ideas are going to be that great. Thank heavens he didn't listen to me.' Benchley had spent childhood summers sailing, fishing or swimming at Nantucket Island, off the coast of Massachusetts, where the black dorsal fins of sharks could be seen above the surface. 'Now, he knew after he wrote the book, and after people started to do more and more research on sharks, that sharks do not hang around. They don't like human flesh: we're too bony, we don't have enough fat on us. Peter always said, 'I would never write Jaws again because I now know how important this animal is and how magnificent it is.'' Benchley was unsure what to call the book. Wendy says: 'Some suggested titles were pretentious, like Leviathan Rising, and others were very scary, like White Death. Peter's father, who was a wonderful guy and a novelist also, said with his good sense of humour: 'How about What's That Noshing on My Leg?' 'It was down to the wire and Peter said, let's settle on the word Jaws because nobody knows what it means and nobody reads a first book anyway. There was absolutely no expectation that this would be rocketing up the New York Times bestseller list.' Nor did the Benchleys expect it to become a movie. Spielberg had chanced upon galley proofs of the book and been enthralled. The rights were secured by producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown for $150,000, plus $25,000 for a first draft of the script, before the novel had been published (it would sell 5.5m copies before the film opened). Wendy says: 'I do remember when Peter got the phone call in our little house in Pennington. I cried. I thought, our life is ruined because I had known people who suddenly got some wealth and I thought, oh no, but we were a little bit older and we had good, strong families and we had wonderful friends and so our life stayed very solid.' Benchley co-wrote the screenplay, and had a bit part on screen as a reporter, but was relieved when Carl Gottlieb took over the day-to-day writing, including a leavening of humour. The film version removed plot lines from the novel such as a mafia connection and an affair between Hooper and Brody's wife. Spielberg also decided: you're gonna need a bigger shark. Dismayed by the demonisation of sharks, Benchley wrote, narrated and appeared in dozens of TV documentaries about marine life and became a full-time marine conservationist. He and his wife worked for the Environmental Defense Fund. The Peter Benchley Ocean Awards are held each year to celebrate individual excellence in ocean conservation. Wendy says: 'We were horrified that people took this novel and this fictional movie as some kind of a licence to go out and kill sharks and to schedule more shark tournaments. We took this very seriously and began to work on conservation issues.' As awareness has grown, she adds, applications to study marine science have risen at universities around the country. 'That is an outcome of Jaws that people now understand. In fact the ocean community embraces Jaws as a positive for ocean science, ocean research and conservation. 'The other thing that surprised us and relieved us greatly was that Peter began to get thousands of letters from people all over the world who said it was a great book, scary movie, but it intrigued them and they want to know more about sharks. There were so many letters from people wanting to be Hooper, not in a white lab coat sitting doing research but out on the ocean and experiencing not only sharks but other ocean creatures. That was a wonderful feeling.'
NZ Herald
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Stop blaming Jaws for ruining movies
A scene from Steven Spielberg's Jaws, based on the popular novel by Peter Benchley. Steven Spielberg's 1975 sleeper hit has been credited and criticised for helping create blockbuster culture. It endures because of the fundamentals. The impact of Jaws on contemporary cinema has been so thoroughly researched, prosecuted and scientifically proved that it has taken on the contours of catechism: Lo, it came to
Bloomberg
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Bloomberg
Fifty Years After Jaws, the Water's Not Safe...for Sharks
Fifty years on from the release of Jaws, it's still not safe in the water… if you're a shark. Steven Spielberg's legendary movie about a man-eating great white shark is a masterpiece. The iconic score, the camera work, the dramatic tension that comes from withholding the villain and a great script all make it a Hollywood classic. But its success disturbed both Spielberg and Peter Benchley, the author of the book the film is based on.
