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RNZ News
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Surely it's safe to go back in the water now?! JAWS turns 50
media life and society 41 minutes ago For 50 years, the movie Jaws has kept us looking down for what might be beneath the waves when we go swimming. Carl Cottlieb is one of the screenwriters responsible for our discomfort. His friend Steven Spielberg handed him the original script and asked him to eviscerate it. Gottlieb was there every day on set to witness the mechanical shark constantly breaking down, the budget overruns, the delays and ultimately the making of highest grossing film of all time. Carl Gottlieb shares his memories as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jaws.
Gizmodo
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Director of ‘Jaws @ 50' Explains Why It's the Ultimate Chronicle of the Classic
Jaws officially turned 50 last week, and it's easy to imagine that Steven Spielberg's shark thriller—Hollywood's first summer blockbuster—will be considered just as much of a classic in 50 more years. National Geographic's annual 'Sharkfest' programming marks the milestone with Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story, a new documentary from frequent Spielberg collaborator Laurent Bouzereau (Music by John Williams). As fans of cinema history well know, however, Jaws is already a well-documented film. In addition to the array of previous behind-the-scenes films, if you haven't read The Jaws Log, by Jaws actor and co-screenwriter Carl Gottlieb—with an introduction by Jaws novel author Peter Benchley—it's a must for learning all the gory details about the film's notoriously troubled production. And Spielberg is aware that the making of his 1975 film has become the stuff of legend; early in Jaws @ 50, Bouzereau asks him if there's anything he hasn't already said about Jaws before, and the Oscar winner responds 'Let's find out.' As part of a recent press day ahead of Jaws @ 50 hitting National Geographic, Hulu, and Disney+, we asked Bouzereau what sets this new documentary apart from all the material that's come before. 'I think that so far, the story of Jaws has been told through very mechanical things, the mechanical shark mainly, and technical things,' he said. 'This is really the heart and soul of a creator in Steven Spielberg, telling the stories of what this really meant to him as an artist. And I think that emotional drama—that's a viable story, something that's been taken for granted and has been mentioned but never discussed. To me, [that] was the heart of telling the story.' In addition, he said, 'Jaws is a generational experience. I really wanted to include new filmmakers [as well as] new voices from the world of the ocean and shark conservation to really discuss the impact that storytelling can have on the world … I think those things, again, have been mentioned but never discussed in a way that is dramatic and suspenseful. We feel that this is a fresh new way of talking about the impact of Jaws.' Bouzereau actually made a making-of doc on the occasion of Jaws' 30th anniversary, included on the film's laserdisc release at the time. He's glad he made it, in part because 'a lot of people from the film were still around [at the time but are no longer with us now]. So I was in a privileged position to sort of talk to those people for the first time in depth since they had made the film. That's a very different kind—more like an [eyewitness], historical kind of approach. So this is a different story. This is a perspective at 50.' Thanks to his earlier work surrounding the film, he was able to pull from earlier interviews he'd done with Jaws star Richard Dreyfuss, who's notably absent from the slate of new interviews. 'He is in [Jaws @ 50] through these archival interviews that I made with him. And unfortunately, I was on a really tight, tight schedule,' Bouzerau explained. 'I was reassured by the fact that I had this amazing interview [with him] that had not really been seen or used at length. So I think he's a very strong voice in it, and I was very happy that I could at least acknowledge his incredible legacy with Jaws. But yeah, [the reason there's not a new interview with him] was a question of timing.' The new film's talking heads include Spielberg, of course, as well as some celebrity superfans, including noted deep-water junkie James Cameron as well as Jordan Peele, who memorably foregrounded a Jaws t-shirt in his movie Us. 'I cast this very carefully because each of them had a different sort of take away from the Jaws experience and watching it. But I can give you the example of [how] Steven Soderbergh came into it,' Bouzereau said, relating an anecdote. During filming on the documentary, Soderbergh texted Spielberg wish him a happy anniversary—because it happened to be the 50th anniversary of the very first day of filming on Jaws. 'The man has studied the call sheets, the schedule of Jaws because this is a director who makes movies very fast and on budget,' Bouzereau said of Soderbergh. 'And that's the opposite of what happened on Jaws. So he's obsessed with that angle.' As for Guillermo del Toro, '[He's] someone who's made a career out of talking about monsters: the monsters inside, the monsters outside. And therefore I was curious about his relationship with the Jaws monster because Jaws is a metaphor. It's a metaphor for his fears. So I was curious about that. So all of this fed my storytelling and was very carefully orchestrated.' Another key talking head? Wendy Benchley, the wife of late Jaws author Peter Benchley. After the book became a movie and a global phenomenon, the couple became advocates for ocean conservation and a better understanding of sharks. In Jaws @ 50, Wendy Benchely recounts the first time she saw the film, and io9 asked her more about what that was like. She watched the film with Peter and 'shark experts and people who were cinematographers who actually had been in the water with sharks,' she recalled, including Ron and Valerie Taylor, Stan Waterman, and Peter Gimble, who all worked on Blue Water, White Death—the 1969 documentary that helped plant the narrative seeds for Jaws. 'We were very nervous because we wanted them to be happy with the film,' she recalled. 'And they were, I mean, they thought the film was really superb. You know, they understood that this was a film that created a 25-foot shark that really didn't exist … but that was a big relief to Peter and me, that are our shark friends and our people that we depended upon really thought it was excellent.' After that, she and Peter attended a public screening with Dreyfuss. 'We couldn't believe it because the audience was up and cheering. And we knew that it was really a thrilling movie. And Richard, of course, who had gone through four or five months with everybody else of agony trying to get this film made, was so thrilled,' she remembered. 'He was jumping up and down on the sidewalk and just screaming at the top of his lungs. 'We did it! We did it!' So that was exciting.' Benchley is pleased that Jaws @ 50 is airing as part of Sharkfest, and that its focus includes shark experts as well as Hollywood types. 'That to me is why this documentary is so marvelous, because it tells the full story of Jaws, of the book and the movie, and the fact that Jaws had a positive effect,' she said. 'It really jumpstarted science and interest in sharks. And that has carried on over the 50 years. I always mention this statistic because I think it's important for people to realize that it happened right away after Jaws. At the Rosenstiel School [of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science at the University of Miami], the increase [in applications] was 30% in marine science right after Jaws. So it didn't take 20 years. It happened right away.' Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story premieres July 10 on National Geographic and streams the next day on Disney+ and Hulu. It's also included on the Jaws 50th Anniversary Edition available now on 4K, Blu-ray, and digital from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
BBC News
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The History Hour Jaws and the Charleston church shooting
Available for over a year Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. This programme includes outdated and offensive language. It's 50 years since the original Jaws film was released in cinemas across America. The movie premiered on 20 June 1975. Our guest is Jenny He, senior exhibitions curator at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. She tells us about the history of this blockbuster movie. We also hear from Carl Gottlieb, who co-wrote the screenplay. Also, the story of the women who were forcibly detained in sexual health clinics across East Germany, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, and the 1964 civil rights swimming protest that ended when acid was poured into the pool. Finally, the horrific account of Polly Sheppard who was a survivor of the Charleston church shooting in South Carolina, USA in 2015. Contributors: Carl Gottlieb - Jaws co-writer. Jenny He - senior exhibitions curator at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Sabine - one of the women forcibly detained and abused in a sexual health clinic in East Germany. Archive of William Norman Ewer - journalist who attended the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Archive of JT Johnson and Mimi Jones -activists in a civil rights swimming protest . Polly Sheppard- survivor of the Charleston Church shooting. This programme contains movie excerpts from the 1975 film which was a Universal Picture, a Zanuck/Brown production and directed by Steven Spielberg. (Photo: Steven Spielberg on the set of the film 'Jaws' in 1975. Credit: Archive Photos/Stringer)
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Jaws' at 50: How Spielberg's movie changes ‘horrified' wife of novel writer Peter Benchley
A little over a year before Jaws opened in theaters and forever changed the next 50 years of cinema, it was a best-selling debut novel by author Peter Benchley. Producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown, who had acquired the rights to Jaws before its publication, turned to Benchley for the first few drafts of the screenplay, but it was ultimately something that, according to his wife, Wendy Benchley, was "hard for him." More from GoldDerby 'SNL's' 50th season takes on 9-time-champ 'Last Week Tonight' for the Best Scripted Variety Series Emmy 'Everything has an expiration date': Amy Poehler on her 'inappropriate' 'SNL' moments, including portraying Michael Jackson and Kim Jong-il Owen Wilson returning for 'Meet the Parents 4,' Academy Museum details 'Jaws' exhibit, and more of today's top stories "That is a completely different kind of writing," she tells Gold Derby ahead of the National Geographic documentary Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story. The producers moved on from Benchley after three drafts, bringing on a series of writers — including the film's one other credited scribe Carl Gottlieb — to shape the story of Chief Martin Brody and a man-eating shark into something the young director Steven Spielberg could eventually shoot. Over the course of many rewrites, much of Benchley's novel was jettisoned in favor of a leaner, meaner, more cinematic story. Readers familiar with the book know that Richard Dreyfuss' Matt Hooper has an affair with Ellen Brody (played in the film by Lorraine Gary), and Amity's greedy mayor, Larry Vaughn, is the craven man he is partly because of his ties to the mafia. All of that and more was excised for the final script. Universal Pictures/Everett Collection The rest of the production is the stuff of movie history — all thoroughly explored in the Nat Geo doc, which airs July 10 before heading to Hulu and Disney+ — but before Jaws hits theaters, producers Brown and Zanuck set a screening for Peter and Wendy Benchley, who brought along friends — including Ron and Valerie Taylor, who shot the film's live shark footage. "David Brown and Richard Zanuck asked Peter and I to go to a private screening of Jaws along with many of our dive friends — Ron and Valerie Taylor, Stan Waterman — and we had no idea whether this movie was going to really work with people who knew the ocean and knew sharks," she recalls in Jaws @ 50. "And at the end, they all got up and applauded and thought it was absolutely fabulous." What Benchley doesn't share in the documentary is her own reaction. "I thought it was a big departure," she tells Gold Derby. "I was completely sort of terrified, and, at times, sort of horrified." But considering that the movie she watched was literally Jaws, the differences between it and the novel couldn't completely get in the way of what she had just experienced. "Also I knew that it was thrilling and exciting and that Spielberg had put together this brilliant movie, and we were swept up," she said. "We were excited, thrilled, happy. Life was suddenly open to us in ways that it had never been before. So it was, it was a life changing development, and I hope we are worthy of it." _________ Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story premieres July 10 on National Geographic and begins streaming July 11 on Disney+ and Hulu; it is also available as a bonus feature on Universal's new 50th edition release of the film on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and digital. Best of GoldDerby Tom Cruise movies: 17 greatest films ranked worst to best 'It was wonderful to be on that ride': Christian Slater talks his beloved roles, from cult classics ('Heathers,' 'True Romance') to TV hits ('Mr. Robot,' 'Dexter: Original Sin') 'It almost killed me': Horror maestro Mike Flanagan looks back at career-making hits from 'Gerald's Game' to 'Hill House' to 'Life of Chuck' Click here to read the full article.
Fast Company
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Fast Company
‘Jaws' 50th anniversary: How to watch the movie that launched blockbusters
The summertime beaches of 1975 were empty, but the movie theaters were full thanks to Steven Spielberg's thriller Jaws. Considered by film historians to be the first-ever summer blockbuster, Jaws put the young director on the map and was the highest-grossing movie of all time until Star Wars was released two years later. June 20 marks the 50th anniversary of its cinematic debut. To celebrate, NBC is airing the film, complete with an introduction by Spielberg. Before we get into specifics about how to tune in, let's take a look at some fun facts about the flick, and what summer 2025 offers in the way of potential blockbusters. It all started with a true story The movie Jaws is based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Peter Benchley. The reporter-turned-novelist was inspired by two powerful forces: his fond memories as a child fishing for sharks in Nantucket with his dad, and a newspaper article that told the real-life story of Frank Mundus, a Montauk, New York, fisherman who hooked a 2-ton-plus great white shark, as NBC notes. The childhood nostalgia and stranger-than-fiction story combined to make a bestseller. Benchley cowrote the film's screenplay with Carl Gottlieb. Each he has a cameo in the film (Benchley as a reporter and Gottlieb as Meadows, the newspaper editor). Spielberg was not the first director attached to the film It's hard to imagine today, but the name Spielberg wasn't always synonymous with storytelling excellence—that reputation had to be earned. Spielberg was just 27 when he devoured Benchley's novel and decided he wanted to be a part of the film version. However, his résumé at the time included only the television movie Duel and the theatrically released The Sugarland Express. Jaws producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown had already offered the project to another director, as Far Out magazine reports. When that individual kept calling the shark a whale in a production meeting, Benchley was not impressed, and Zanuck and Brown gave the job to Spielberg. Filming was not smooth sailing The set of Jaws saw problem after problem. The film's budget was originally $4 million but grew to $9 million. Principal photography was scheduled for 55 days but ended up lasting 159. 'Being on Jaws became a living nightmare, and not because I didn't know what I was doing or because I was struggling to find the movie in my head,' Spielberg recalled to Vanity Fair in 2023. 'I knew the film I wanted to make. I just couldn't get the movie I had in mind on film as quickly as I wanted.' Much of this was due to Spielberg's insistence on filming at sea off the coast of Martha's Vineyard instead of in a studio tank. A mechanical shark, nicknamed 'Bruce,' was notoriously breaking down. The script was constantly reworked, and actors didn't always get along. ' Jaws was a fun movie to watch but not a fun movie to make,' Spielberg added in the Vanity Fair interview. 50 years later: Special Jaws screenings and streaming To revisit this classic film—or perhaps to see it for the first time—tune in to NBC Friday, June 20, at 8 p.m. ET. If that doesn't work with your schedule, the film and its three sequels are available to stream on Peacock. It's also heading back to select big screens across the U.S. beginning August 29, according to NBCUniversal. 2025 summer blockbuster offerings Another roundabout way to honor the legacy of Jaws is simply by seeing any movie in a theater this summer. The industry is still trying to find its footing after the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple Hollywood labor union strikes in 2023, and devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025. It could use the support. Plus, movie theaters have air-conditioning! For comparison, domestic ticket sales were roughly $8.6 billion last year, compared to $11.3 billion in 2019. While changing media consumption habits like streaming and endless smartphone scrolling have further challenged the notion of the summer blockbuster in recent years, 2025 still has many contenders that will vie for the crown—and there really is something for everyone. This includes Jurassic World Rebirth, on which Spielberg serves as an executive producer, is scheduled for a July 2 release. Already on the big screen is Tom Cruise's latest addition to the Mission: Impossible franchise, The Final Reckoning, complete with death-defying stunts.
