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By George Robbins

There are many a movie which have managed to become placed near the top of the cinema world and among them, there are a few thrillers, but not with a shark as the main villain. ‘Jaws’ did something that almost no other movie had done before its release in that it made a thriller film with a shark as the main villain of the film. Normally in a thriller it was common to only ever see people as the main villains of the film, but ‘Jaws’ turned that entirely on its head. “Just how could a shark be made out as a thriller villain?” was a question that many people probably asked themselves at the time of the first film’s release back in 1975. What they quickly discovered is that a shark is pretty much the perfect stalking predator to be considered for a role as a villain in a thriller film because no one can see it even if it is right next to them.

What many people failed to consider at the time is that water is not as see through as people would expect it to be and therefore it is very easy for someone swimming in the ocean to not notice a large predator. If a predator is in the water below you, then it will try its best to stay underwater until such time that it may need to surface to get something it needs. Otherwise, it could swim right past you without you knowing and then it can grab you and drag you under before you even have a chance to scream. People came to realize this fact as a strong possibility in the world after watching the first ‘Jaws’ and people instantly became afraid of sharks swimming up to them and eating them like the movie showed. What many people don’t know is that, while yes sharks do attack humans every now and then, it is because they are mostly just desperate for food or they think that humans are actually something else.

A little known fact is that sharks get attracted to people swimming in the water because they think that it might be a sea lion or some other type of animal they would normally eat and they only do that when they need food due to hunger. As a result, people instantly assume that sharks will try to hunt people down on a regular basis because of what they had seen in ‘Jaws.’ Another fact that people may not realize unless told is that, although Great White Sharks are what is shown in the movies, it is actually Bull Sharks that will pretty much attack anything they can get their teeth on. Yet again ‘Jaws’ made it seem like every shark that could possibly be in the water would try to come after people no matter what because they like eating people. It is actually pretty incredible to see how much of an impact the movie has managed to make over the years and how many people it created a fear of the ocean in.

Another thing that a lot of people may not know about but it is relatively common knowledge in Hollywood is that the original ‘Jaws’ had a platitude of production problems that it had to deal with. First of all, the movie had an incomplete script when they finally started filming the movie and therefore they had to get everything done quickly before they started with three different writers working on the script. Another thing people may not have known was that the casting took much longer to complete than initially thought because they had a hard time casting Quint and Brody, as well as the fact that Richard Dreyfuss initially turned down the role of Hooper before coming back asking for the role. Things didn’t get much better on the set after this because Robert Shaw, who played Quint, and Richard Dreyfuss regularly got into arguments on set because Shaw thought that Dreyfuss was being too full of himself on set.

Beyond just the casting situation and the script not being finished on time, the mechanical and technical aspects of the movie also suffered from various setbacks while they were in production. First of all, the mechanical shark that they used in the film would malfunction, a lot, so they had to constantly stop making the film just to fix it before filming again. Beyond just the malfunctioning shark, they had to deal with a lot more trouble in regards to schedule and budget as they went way over both of those things. A lot of time and money could be attributed to the malfunctioning animatronic and the fact that the movie was shot on location in Martha’s Vineyard in order to make the film more realistic. A lot of the malfunctioning was happening during crucial filming as well, but they were finally able to finish filming the movie.

Despite everything that had happened on the production of ‘Jaws,’ the movie ended up becoming a smash hit which ended up taking home a killer amount of money at the box office during its theatrical run. Not only that, but the movie ended up getting three Academy Awards once award season rolled around though Spielberg would not get Best Director for quite some time afterward. All these years later, they have decided to make a huge part of cinematic history a part of movie history forever by putting it in a museum. This is why the last remaining model of the shark from ‘Jaws’ is now going to find what we hope will be its permanent home in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The massive model will become available for viewing when the museum opens in April 2021.