We’re going to need a bigger boat.

Did You Know?

• The first ever LaserDisc title marketed in North America was the MCA DiscoVision release of Jaws in 1978.
• John Williams's shark theme, a simple alternating pattern of two notes, was performed by tuba player Tommy Johnson.

Production

The producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown purchased the film rights to Peter Benchley's novel Jaws in 1973, before its publication, for approximately $175,000. Brown later claimed that had they read the book twice, they would never have made the film due to the difficulty of executing certain sequences. After initially considering John Sturges and then Dick Richards—who was dropped for describing the shark as a whale—the producers signed Steven Spielberg to direct in June 1973. Spielberg had just directed The Sugarland Express for Zanuck and Brown and was captivated after reading the unpublished novel. He noted similarities between Jaws and his 1971 television film Duel, both dealing with "these leviathans targeting everymen." The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography. The production was troubled, going over budget and schedule, partly because the mechanical sharks often malfunctioned, leading Spielberg to suggest the shark's presence rather than show it directly.

Themes

The most notable artistic antecedent to Jaws is Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. The character of Quint strongly resembles Captain Ahab, and Quint's monologue reveals a similar obsession with sharks; his boat, the Orca, is named after the only natural enemy of the white shark. In the novel and original screenplay, Quint dies after being dragged under by a harpoon tied to his leg, similar to Ahab's death. A direct reference was planned in Spielberg's draft, introducing Quint watching the film version of Moby-Dick, but the scene could not be licensed. Screenwriter Carl Gottlieb also compared the film to Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. The underwater shots from the shark's point of view have been compared to Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Monster That Challenged the World. Gottlieb cited The Thing from Another World and It Came From Outer Space as influences on how the shark was depicted, helping Spielberg and Gottlieb "concentrate on showing the 'effects' of the shark rather than the shark itself." Scholars have described Jaws as melding genres, taking from horror and a nature-based monster movie while adding elements of a slasher film, a buddy film, and supernatural horror. Spielberg cited Godzilla, King of the Monsters! as a formative influence.

Release

Universal spent $1.8 million marketing Jaws, including an unprecedented $700,000 on national television spot advertising. The media blitz included about two dozen 30-second advertisements airing each night on prime-time network TV from June 18, 1975, until the film's opening two days later. As early as October 1974, Zanuck, Brown, and Benchley promoted the paperback edition and the forthcoming film on talk shows. The studio and publisher Bantam agreed on a title logo for both the paperback and advertising. The centerpieces of the marketing strategy were John Williams's theme and the poster image of the shark approaching a lone female swimmer, based on the paperback's cover by Roger Kastel. The Seiniger Advertising agency spent six months designing the poster; principal Tony Seiniger decided that "you had to actually go underneath the shark so you could see his teeth." More merchandise included a soundtrack album, T-shirts, plastic tumblers, a book about the making of the movie, beach towels, blankets, shark costumes, toy sharks, hobby kits, games, posters, and more. The Ideal Toy Company produced The Game of Jaws.

Reception

Jaws shattered box office records from its opening weekend, earning $7 million across 409 theaters and recouping its production costs within ten days on a gross of over $21 million. Within 59 days, it had reached $100 million from 954 locations. After just 78 days, it surpassed The Godfather to become the highest-grossing film in North America, the first to hit $100 million in domestic rentals. By September 1975, 40 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 had reportedly seen it. It held the number-one spot for 14 consecutive weeks, with its initial run generating $123.1 million in rentals; re-releases in 1976 and 1979 pushed that total to $133.4 million. Overseas, it set records in Singapore, New Zealand, Japan, Spain, and Mexico. On January 11, 1976, it became the highest-grossing film worldwide with $132 million in rentals, a record it held until Star Wars. Across all 1970s releases, Jaws earned $260 million in the U.S. and Canada and $470 million globally.