From the author of Jaws...the screen adaptations of Peter Benchley
Before the book Jaws had even been sent to the printers, the film rights had already been sold to producers Richard D Zanuck and David Brown.
That was well before the like of Steven Spielberg, John Williams, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss had stepped aboard the movie - or the Orca.
Come the summer of 1975 and Jaws was a monster success at the box office, fitting for a 25 foot killer shark film, it becoming the first film to swallow over $100 million at the US box office.
Book sales were huge ahead of the release of the film, and continued to sell by the chum bucket load, so Hollywood being Hollywood it is no surprise that the Jaws author was hot property and that other film and TV studios wanted to get their teeth into any future work by Peter Benchley.
In the years following Jaws there were several attempts to repeat that Jaws magic, with mixed results. In all there were - including Jaws - five screen adaptations of the books of Peter Benchley.
The Daily Jaws take a deep dive beneath the surface of the world of the author of Jaws.
Jaws (1975)
Amity Island, a seaside town off Long Island is getting ready for the summer season, but it could have never been ready for the murderous shadow of a Great White Shark. As the victims continue to wash up the town hire a grizzled fisherman to catch it and kill it. Joining him at sea are a marine biologist and the town’s chief of police. It’s sink or swim for the thrust together threesome as they fight against the elements, against each other and against the shark.
Jaws never puts a foot wrong, it still has fantastic pace, still thrills and scares a little in all the right places and also makes people laugh in all the places that it is meant to do.
Jaws still taps into our primal fears and when each and every person bringing that to life is working at the top of their game you can’t go wrong, critically, commercially or for longevity.
Peter Benchley, and old pal of Spielberg, Carl Gottlieb, are listed as the screenwriters of the project but beneath the surface of the credits it is revealed that several different people helped stamp their authority on the project.
Benchley had two passes at the script and then the Pulitzer winning playwright (and scuba diver), Howard Sackler, was brought in to beef up the script. One of his greatest additions was the Quint USS Indianapolis monologue, which never featured in Benchley's original book.
This one moment, more than any other, has been the one that has become fabled in who should take the credit for the powerful moment when Robert Shaw’s character retells his World War 2 shark encounter. Future Apocalypse Now and Conan scribe, John Milius, had a crack at it with Shaw himself, an accomplished playwright, also gave it a polish and honed it to the perfection you see on screen, depending on whose tale you listen to of course.
And Benchley didn't agree with the ending of the film, where Chief Brody blows up the shark. He just didn't think the audience would buy it.
Although the book to film had many changes - whether that was planned or by circumstance - Benchley supplied that template and the elements of Amity, the shark, Brody, Quint and Hooper. Without Peter Benchley's original vision, there would be no Steven Spielberg film of Jaws. Or that killer Peter Benchley cameo.
The Deep (1977)
David Sanders (Nick Nolte) and Gail Berke (Jacqueline Bisset) are on a diving holiday in Bermuda hunting for sunken treasure, but get more than they bargained for when come across 98,000 vials of morphine in a sunken World War 2 freighter.
They then seek out the help of grizzled treasure hunter Romer Treece, played with more than a hint of Quint by Robert Shaw. There's also great support from Eli Wallach and future Jaws 3D star, Louis Gossett Jr, as a Haitian drug dealer after their discovery and will stop at nothing to get it, even if it costs them their lives.
The Deep, directed by Peter Yates, all unfolds at a leisurely pace, you kind of let it wash over you, with lingering underwater scenes.
We don't get any dialogue for almost nine minutes at the start- interjected with some exciting moments, such as a brutal scene where Bisset is nearly trapped underwater, an almost Hitchcockian external lift fight, that moray eel, a tense scooter scene and a claustrophobic ticking bomb clock finale.
The Deep is not Jaws, and it isn't trying to be, even though we do get Robert Shaw and a wonderful shark feeding frenzy scene. At times it almost has an underwater documentary feel, and although beautiful to look at for some it's pacing may be a little slow.
Glorious visuals are accompanied by a wonderful John Barry score and there are lots of moments and performances to enjoy, just as long aren't hoping for Jaws: the second coming.
The Island (1980)
The titular island looks suitably ominous, almost as if King Kong (1933) could live there or the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park (1993), but instead it is home to a band of modern-day pirates.
The film, again boasting a Benchley screenplay, opens featuring a chartered fishing boat with a man whose reel is screaming out.
It's hard not to think of Quint and whether it is a shark, it's not, it's a marlin, with a huge chunk missing out of it. Where's Matt Hooper when you need him?
Cue creepy abandoned shipwreck, like something out of Scooby-Doo. The boat drops anchor near the island when the men on the boat are taken out in a gory fashion, all hatchets in the head and stomach, which is more akin to Friday the 13th (1980), so is quite the initial shock.
Enter Michael Caine - years before his role as Hoagie in Jaws the Revenge (1987) - in New York, as a reporter wanting to investigate 600 boat disappearances down in Florida, plugging into that Bermuda Triangle vibe of the late 1970s, which is where the boat in the opening was from.
His young son tags along for a ride after the promise of stopping off at Disney World. Caine and his son travel to the island by cargo plane, obviously doing some early research for his part as Hoagie. Especially as the plane lands with no wheels down, one blown up plane later and they are stuck on the island.
Cue capture by pirates, a kangaroo court, escape and Caine fighting for the very soul of his son, which sees The Island hit both The Wicker Man and fatherly revenge territory. Although Caine never speaks of the film it is a flawed but fun romp, which is never dull and is worth it just to see a desperate Caine wound until he snaps.
Like with The Deep, if you go in expecting another Jaws you’ll be disappointed, but the film kept my interest in just seeing how Caine and his son might escape and make it off The Island and was suitably unnerving and a genuinely interesting premise with Friday The 13th style moments thrown in for good measure in this modern-day pirate tale.
The Beast (1996)
We'd have to wait over 15 years before another Peter Benchley book transferred to screen, although this time it was in the form of a two-part TV movie.
The Beast, based on the Peter Benchley novel of the same name, almost has the same story beats as Jaws, with us opening on a boat on its own in the ocean, you just know that its occupants are Chrissie Watkins waiting to happen.
A couple have to leave their sinking boat in their dinghy, but soon they become victims of an unseen attack, with its ending emulating Chrissie being pulled under the water in Jaws. It's certainly an effective opening.
Interest piqued; we then move to Ami... I mean Graves Point, Washington. The Jaws variations continue, but it is never not a fun viewing experience, and that is thanks in no small part to the presence to the always dependable William Petersen, as Whip Dalton, years before he carried a flashlight in CSI.
Benchley also served as executive producer on this two-parter, which still holds up pretty well to this day.
Jaws with a squid, yes, it is. Which only means that there is lots to love. Its tentacles don't even get in touching distance of Jaws, but it still - even all these years later - has lots to commend it.
It does suffer a little from some of the usual flabby soap opera filler to fill its running time. If nothing else, it helps confirm that the chucking out of the subplots from Jaws the book for Jaws the film was absolutely the right move.
Having said that, several set pieces and scenes are still hugely effective and if nothing else it is fun to see the Jaws story reworked over 20 years later. There is a particularly tense scene with Dalton's daughter and friend who go in the water, when you know who is in the area.
There's also an eco-message in there about overfishing and how the rampaging squid is actually our fault. Petersen's character even saying in the town hall meeting that: "It's not a monster, just a hungry animal trying to survive."
Before this, there was another version of The Beast mooted, this time for the big screen and directed by John Carpenter, who also gave us Halloween and The Thing. Sadly, that version sank beneath the waves.
Creature (1998)
It was a return to the realms of the two-part TV movie with Creature, which was an adaptation of the Benchley book White Shark.
Although Benchley was back with sharks, this was like something from The X-Files with a dolphin-shark hybrid, with only the stars of Poltergeist (Craig ) and Sex And The City (Kim Cattrall) able to solve the mystery.
In 1972 in a secret Navy base off St. Lucia, naval researchers have created a hybrid: a dolphin crossed with a great white shark. The Navy wants to use it in the rice paddy fields of Vietnam but the scientists go too far, creating a new species which the Navy covers up. Naturally.
Fast forward 25 years and scientist Simon Chase (Nelson) takes over the island with his ex-wife (Cattrall) and son to research the connection between cancer and sharks. Cue some Deep Blue Sea style shenanigans, with some impressive creature work by Stan Winston (Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park).
It all gets a tad bonkers, with more than a Creature From The Black Lagoon feel to it all - and is played deadly seriously, even though it is hard not to laugh.
As experiments and TV movies go, it's a failure and is not hard to see why another Benchley adaptation hasn't been tried since.
With the renewed interest in shark and creature features, more platforms such as Netflix and Prime, perhaps we'll one day see a return of Benchley's books to our screens - big or small.
What Benchley books - adapted already or not - would you like to see on screens?