JAWS: Behind the Scenes - Fun Facts You Might Not Know About the Blockbuster Movie

Broadway's new comedy The Shark is Broken, now playing at the Golden Theatre, takes audiences members behind the scenes during the making of one of the most famous movies of all time, Jaws. 

Bringing Jaws to the screen was anything but smooth smailing. But from high tensions on the water, to the mechanical shark malfunctioning, and every challenge in between, came one of the biggest blockbuster movies in history. 

As The Shark is Broken begins its Broadway voyage, BroadwayWorld is sharing facts you may not know about the movie!

Jaws was based off a book

Many people might not know that Jaws was based off a bestselling book! The source material for the movie was Peter Benchley's 1974 novel. The hardback stayed on the bestseller list for 44 weeks and the paperback sold millions of copies when it was released the following year. By the time the film adaptation debuted in June 1975 the novel had sold 5.5 million copies domestically, eventually reaching 9.5 million copies. Jaws is estimated to have sold 20 million copies worldwide. Benchley is credited for writing the first drafts of the screenplay to the film, while Carl Gottlieb and Howard Sackler, (a Broadway playwright best known for The Great White Hope) were brought in for rewrites. 

There was a different director initally attached to the movie

Director Steven Spielberg was still a young up-and-comer when Jaws was being made. Even though there was another director already attached to the movie, producer Richard D. Zanuck wanted Spielberg's opinion on the film, and gave Spielberg the script to read. The material resonated with Spielberg, who let Zanuck know that if the current director ever dropped out, that he would love to tell the story. In a meeting early on in the process, it became clear that the attached director's vision and understanding of the film was not what the team was going for. Spielberg was then called in for the job and history was rewritten. 

Steven Spielberg initially wanted different actors for the starring roles

The characters that have been imortalized on screen by Roy Scheider (Martin Brody), Richard Dreyfuss (Matt Hooper), and Robert Shaw (Quint) were not who Spielberg originally had in mind! Spielberg first wanted Lee Marvin for Quint, with his next choice being Sterling Hayden. For Hooper, the studio wanted Jan-Michael Vincent. Richard Dreyfuss was Speilberg's first choice, but Dreyfuss initially turned it down, thinking that the process would be too difficult to shoot. He turned Spielberg down again before finally accepting the role. Screen icon Charleton Heston wanted to play the role of Martin Brody, but Spielberg thought that he was too big of a presence for the part. Spielberg met Roy Scheider at a party and told him that they were having trouble finding someone to play Brody. Scheider suggested himself for the role, and the rest is history! 

Jaws was actually filmed on the Atlantic Ocean

All of those scenes shot on the water were not just movie magic! No soundstage or calm lake would do for the production- Jaws was really filmed out on the ocean, at Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. Director Steven Spielberg shared, "Lake water, pond water, tank water, doesn’t have the same texture, or even violence that the ocean has, and this needed to be a convincing story about a great white shark. Because if it wasn’t, nobody would really believe it.” Of course, this complicated the filming, as the water was unpredictable, sailboats would get in the shots, and the cast and crew were at the mercy of the weather. 

Jaws went over budget and over schedule 

The filming of Jaws was riddled with complications. Because of these constant roadblocks in the filming, the shooting schedule tripled, and the budget doubled. The shooting schedule went from 55 days to 159 days, while the budget went from $4 million to $9 million. 

More than one shark was built for the filming of the movie 

The shark in Jaws was supposed to be 25 feet long and weigh three tons. Multiple views of the shark was built, and Robert Maddy designed the shark on a moving crane. The views of the shark that were built included a left shark, right shark, a head, and sled shark to see the fins. The shark would break constantly, so the production had to figure out how to make the movie work without a shark, with Spielberg likening it to a Hitchock film rather than a Godzilla movie; ultimately it's what you don't see that is so frightening. 

The name of the shark came from an unlikely source 

The shark in the Jaws was nicknamed Bruce, after Steven Speilberg's lawyer, Bruce Ramer!

One of the characters in the movie almost had a different ending

Two shark expert advisors on the movie were working off the coast of Australia to capture footage of sharks in the water. In the scene in the fil, where Hooper goes into the water in the cage, they attempted to get the shot by using a stuntman. However, the best footage of a real Great White Shark was caught while the stuntman wasn't in the cage. In the screenplay, the character of Hooper was supposed to die, but the footage was so strong that Spielberg decided to change the story and let Hooper live. 

Spielberg wasn't so sure at first about the movie's famous score

Jaws has one of the most famous film scores of all time, with its two-note theme now synonymous with impending danger. But when composer John Williams first played those famous two notes for the director on the piano, Spielberg thought he was kidding, and laughed! The theme in the film is played on the tuba, and the score went on to earn Williams an Oscar. Spielberg shared, “I was very lucky. Because god knows the shark never worked, but Johnny did.”

Jaws was the most successful film ever made at the time

Despite its many challenges in being brought to the screen, Jaws is considered to be the first summer blockbuster. Jaws became the highest-grossing film ever when it was released in 1975. It's opening weekend set a record at $7 million, and it went on to gross a record $21,116,354 in its first 10 days. It grossed $260 million at the domestic box office with its original 1975 release. When adjusted for inflation that number stands over $1 billion. Jaws won Oscars for Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing, and
Best Picture.

THE SHARK IS BROKEN stars two-time Tony Award nominee Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice, School of Rock) as Richard Dreyfuss, Colin Donnell(Anything Goes, “Chicago Med”) as Roy Scheider, and Ian Shaw who is making his Broadway debut portraying his father Robert Shaw, who played “Quint” in JAWS.  Co-written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, this new Olivier Award-nominated comedy imagines what happened on board “The Orca” when the cameras stopped rolling during the filming of Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster, JAWS.

Directed by Guy Masterson, The Shark Is Broken has scenic and costume design by Duncan Henderson, lighting design by Jon Clark, sound design and original music by Adam Cork, video design by Nina Dunn, and casting by Jim Carnahan Casting. Rounding out the company of The Shark Is Broken are understudies Peter Bradbury, Stephen Dexter, and Coby Getzug. The Shark is Broken will run for a strictly limited 16-week engagement.