How Steven Spielberg went from sharks to Scarface

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Steven Spielberg may have only briefly pondered about directing JAWS 2 (1978), which ended up featuring a scared and burnt great white shark.

But, years later he did end up helping bring another Scarface to the big screen.

In 1983, Spielberg was visiting his friend Brian De Palma on the set of his latest movie, Scarface.

Soon Spielberg was in charge of a second unit and was helping direct the iconic sequence when the Colombians race up the stars to be greeted by Al Pacino and his little friend they were all about to say hello to. 

De Palma said: “Steven wandered over, we did a few shots: 'What do you think about this Steve, should we put another camera up here?’ ‘Why not?!’ I mean everybody was shooting people shooting at people."

Shooting people getting blown to pieces was as far away as you could get from Spielberg’s latest film at that time, E.T. - the Extra Terrestrial.

Audiences worldwide took to this little (alien) friend and made it the highest grossing film of all time. A record Spielberg took back off George Lucas after Star Wars (1977) had taken it off JAWS. Spielberg would gazump himself in 1993 with Jurassic Park.

Words by Dean Newman

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