Which JAWS movies made the most money?
‘Sometimes you’re making art, other times you’re just making money’.
Who said that? No idea. But it’s true.
And with JAWS in 1975, Spielberg knew he had to make money. It was his top priority, make lots and lots of cash so he could then go on to make other movies. Of course, that’s not to say that he just went for the easy payday. We all know this.
He was asked to make it on the backlot - he refused. He wanted realism, he didn’t want a cheap-looking monster picture. He was asked to use tanks and ponds - another shake of the head. He plumped for the brutality and unpredictability of the mighty Atlantic as his stage. He was asked to use stars like Charlton Heston - he went for character actors. Heston had just saved the world in 1974’s Earthquake and then the next year saved a plane load of passengers in Airport ‘75 so to have him as a small town sheriff battling a shark didn’t quite fit. It was a big shark, but not ‘Ben Hur big’.
Speilberg was asked to hire professional extras - but he went for local people to fill out the background action - figuring they just looked better. He did everything he could to make a fast-paced, tense, accessible, A-Z adventure movie that people would be scared stiff to watch and would stop them from booking that nice beach holiday but…he also wanted to craft a piece of cinema that could rival ‘Vertigo’, ‘North by Northwest’ or ‘Psycho’.
He went after the Holy Grail of movie making - critical praise and dollars in the bank.
JAWS (1975) $476.5 million
The worldwide takings for JAWS (according to Wikipedia) comes in at $476.5 million, and adjusted for inflation, has made over $2 billion and is the second-most successful franchise movie after Star Wars. If you take into account the Real3D and IMAX reissue of 2022, it has grossed $265.8 million in the United States and Canada, which is equivalent to $1.2 billion at 2020 prices (based on an estimated 128,078,800 tickets sold)
JAWS was a very sweet deal for Universal.
JAWS 2 (1978) $208,900,376
Back in 1975/76 when all the fuss had died down, the studio were obviously pushing for a sequel.
But Spielberg was out, he’d made one and that was enough for him. Dreyfus declined, Quint had been bitten in half so that meant no Robert Shaw either - he’d go on to star in another Benchley penned sea-based thriller, ‘The Deep’. So, in the end it was just Roy Scheider who returned from the Holy Trinity of Hooper, Quint and Brody to take on the new shark.
In terms of numbers, JAWS 2 brought in a good amount of cash, $77,737,272 during its initial release, making it the 6th highest grossing film in 1978. It eventually went past $100 million with reissues and ultimately earning $102,922,376 in the United States and $208,900,376 worldwide. This was a very respectable total even if it was far below its predecessor, but then whatever way you slice it, whilst JAWS 2 is a fun enough movie, but it suffers from being a thinly veiled reworking of the first movie. However, thanks to healthy receipts, a few years later someone came up with an idea to make a third one…
JAWS 3D (1983) $87,987,055
JAWS 3D came out in 1983 - double the time it had taken to release JAWS 2. The film made $13,422,500 on its US opening weekend, making it 1983's second highest-grossing opening weekend movie. It has achieved a total lifetime worldwide gross of $87,987,055. Even though it was No. 1 at the box office, it shows how much the returns of the series were diminishing with each movie - probably because the first movie was a genuinely shocking and well-crafted film and really once the tale’s been told so well the first time, do you need a rehash of it again and again? In all, JAWS 3D has earned nearly $100 million less than the total lifetime gross of JAWS 2 and $300 million less than the original film. And those are really big numbers.
JAWS THE REVENGE (1987) $51.9 million
JAWS THE REVENGE was released in 1987 and made $51.9 million. It made a profit from a budget of $23 million but the lack of funds really do show. This, alongside what was a poor initial idea and a lack of real direction for the plot made for one of the worst received movies of all time.
Once again, the story of humans being attacked by a Great White shark had been told so much better back in 1975, this latest instalment offered the viewer nothing except the feeling that they’d have had a much better time popping the VHS of JAWS into their machine and watching how a real movie’s made.
Will there be a JAWS 5 sometime in the future? Who can really say? Hollywood loves a sequel (even a really bad one) and if enough years go past, there’s always someone who’ll be either brave or stupid enough to stick their head above the parapet and suggest it. Shark movies have kept being made and they’ve mostly been pretty sorry affairs. But perhaps a new JAWS movie might turn some heads.
Naturally, it’d have to be something really special to make much of a dent in the luminosity of the first movie. If they looked to the idea of a prequel though… it could (just about) work - maybe.
Spielberg has remarked in the past that a proper USS Indianapolis movie would be something he could perhaps get behind - although it’s doubtful he’d sit in the director’s chair. But even then, why make it?
Well, that’d be money.
And as that’s what we’re talking about here, how would Universal maximise their profits?
Well, getting Spielberg to direct would be a huge plus of course. So let’s say for the sake of argument that the studio somehow managed this feat.
What next? You’d definitely need someone with an ear for dialogue to write the script. Someone who almost doesn’t care about special effects and all that other stuff, they just want to hear people talk.
Could they get Tarantino? Now that’d be incredible, but then wouldn’t he want to direct?
So, how about that? Allow Spielberg to wear the producer’s baseball cap this time round, put Quentin in as director and script writer and you’ve really got something going on. The directors are by all accounts quite close so I’m sure they could figure it out. People would start getting excited.
Cast it right, have effects that don’t look like every other CGI fest with as much practical stuff as possible, with characters you really care about and you might just have the best ‘shark movie’ since 1975 - and one that makes almost as much money.
You never know, might just happen.
Words by Tim Armitage
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