The JAWS stories too crazy to be true...but actually are!
Sometimes, just like the great white shark in JAWS, we like to pull your leg a little on April Fool’s Day.
Such tomfoolery has seen The Daily Jaws suggest that Andy Serkis was going to play the great white shark through motion capture in a CGI retooling of JAWS or that Richard Dreyfuss and Michael Caine were returning to our screens in a JAWS sequel that saw them reprise their roles as Matt Hooper and Hoagie. All lies.
And that piece about them going to change Peter Benchley's book, taking out the mafia subplot, the affair between Hooper and Ellen Brody and adding in the USS Indianapolis story from Quint, so that the story more closely matches that of the Steven Spielberg film? Complete cobblers.
But, now and again, a JAWS related story surfaces that sounds so incredible, so made up, that it can only be true. Here's ten of our favourites.
Richard Dreyfuss said that Bruce the mechanical shark in JAWS should be replaced with a CGI one.
Matt Hooper may have been in sharks but it looks like the actor who played him in Jaws, Richard Dreyfuss, is in CGI sharks as he told Deadline that the beloved mechanical Bruce should get a CGI makeover.
Interviewed at the Catalina Film Festival, the Oscar winning actor said: “They should put the money in to CGI [to replace] that beast and make it come alive. Is that blasphemy? No, no, I don’t think so. The technology now could make the shark look as good as the rest of the movie.”
Red the full original article here.
Steven Spielberg's JAWS appears in his dinosaur directed smash-hit Jurassic Park (1993).
Jurassic Park, in many ways, is the closest Spielberg has ever been to capturing the wonder, excitement, scares and adventure of JAWS, so it is fitting its cinematic toothy monster cousin makes a fleeting appearance. And here’s where JAWS appears in the dinosaur epic.
Chrissie Watkins actress Susan Backlinie owned the bear that did the Chewbacca roars in Star Wars.
Backlinie owned the bear that Star Wars sound designer, Ben Burtt, used to record the noises that would form the familiar sounds of Chewbacca in the George Lucas series of films featuring Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Darth Vader.
Richard Dreyfuss was originally cast in All That Jazz, instead of his JAWS co-star Roy Scheider.
Roy Scheider rightfully earned his second Oscar nomination for his role in All That Jazz (1979), but the character of Joe Gideon was originally to be played by Richard Dreyfuss, but he got cold feet and even spoke to Scheider about it ahead of quitting the role, something Dreyfuss would later deeply regret.
A murdered woman, whose identity remained a mystery for almost 50 years, may have been an extra in JAWS.
A teenage girl was walking her dog in Provincetown, Massachusetts, on Race Point Dunes, when she came across a gruesome scene: a badly decomposed body of a young woman, lying face-down on a beach towel.
It’s 1974, and a shocking discovery was found on a Provincetown beach, but this was no Chrissie Watkins, this was the discovery of a woman whose hands had been cut off and she’d practically been decapitated.
It’s thought that blue bandanna and a pair of jeans folded up under her head at the scene may be a major clue; these are also similar to the clothes that an extra appears to be wearing in JAWS.
The disturbing death and discovery had become a belated part of the Jaws story thanks to the son of Stephen King, Joe Hill.
During the stressful shooting of JAWS Steven Spielberg slept with a stick of celery under his pillow to help keep him calm.
If garlic keeps vampires away, what is it that keeps nightmares of attacking sharks at bay? Celery, well that's what director Steven Spielberg used when he was making Jaws.
So, in an effort to stop the recurring nightmares that Spielberg had during his sleep whilst making the shark classic, the famed director took to sleeping with a stick of celery under his pillow, which is said to have a calming aroma.
George Lucas got his head stuck in Bruce the mechanical shark ahead of filming JAWS.
The malfunctioning shark in JAWS is legendary, his mouth was working perfectly one night though when he caught George Lucas' head between his teeth. Talk about Star Jaws, or so the story goes.
That's right, the then future Star Wars (1977) director got his head clamped in the mouth of Bruce the shark...and he couldn't get it out. All of which gives the force is strong with this one a whole new meaning!
Talking of heads, the iconic Ben Gardner head sequence in JAWS was filmed in the swimming pool of JAWS editor Verna Fields.
One of the boys with the fake cardboard fin in JAWS grew up to become the real Chief Brody and became the chief of police for Oak Bluffs, where some of the Steven Spielberg shark classic was filmed.
In Oak Bluffs, MA one man can make a difference. The Martha’s Vineyard town has a new chief of police in the shape Jonathan Searle, who appeared in Steven Spielberg's Jaws.
It was Jonathan, and his brother Steven, who played the two Amity pranksters with the fake cardboard fin that initially caused the mass panic on the beach ahead of the estuary attack and our first proper glimpse of the great white shark.
Originally, it was planned for Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) to become the first on screen shark victim in JAWS the Revenge.
In the original planned opening for Jaws the Revenge (1987), Chief Brody was set to be attacked and killed by a great white shark.
It was all going to be a shocking ending for the chief of Amity P. D. who had successfully killed the sharks at the end of both Jaws (1975) and Jaws 2 (1978).
In the Jaws the Revenge that made it to screen, instead it is Sean Brody - the youngest of the Brody boys - that dies in the opening scenes of the film. One assumes in a similar fate that was set to befall his dad.
Mayor Vaughn actor, Murray Hamilton, was 'attacked' by a skunk on Martha's Vineyard one evening after filming JAWS, and it was all the fault of 'Ben Gardner'.
After taking an evening walk after a day's filming, Murray Hamilton is said to have gone to pet a cat sat on a fence (obviously it hadn't been karate chopped), but instead of content purrs he was greeted with a defensive squirting from the anal glands of a skunk. You read that right, a skunk.
Words by Dean Newman
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