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Universal Pictures is proud to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jaws (1975), director Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award®–winning thriller that redefined the theatrical experience and remains one of the most influential films in cinema history. On August 29, the film returns to theaters nationwide in stunning 4K, with select screenings in IMAX®, RealD 3D, 4Dx and D-box, offering audiences the chance to experience the original summer blockbuster as never before.

Released on June 20, 1975, Jaws became a box-office sensation and a cultural tidal wave. It was the first film in history to surpass $100 million at the domestic box office and helped usher in the era of the wide-release blockbuster. Its success redefined the studio release model and established the summer season as Hollywood’s premiere showcase for event films.

For Spielberg — who had made his feature debut the year prior with The Sugarland Express — Jaws marked a pivotal ascent. The film cemented...

Universal Pictures will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award–winning thriller that redefined the theatrical experience and remains one of the most influential films in cinema history.

On August 29, the film returns to theaters nationwide in stunning 4K, with select screenings in IMAX, RealD 3D, 4Dx, and D-box, offering audiences the chance to experience the original summer blockbuster as never before.

Released on June 20, 1975, Jaws became a box office sensation and a cultural tidal wave. It was the first film in history to surpass $100 million at the domestic box office, helping usher in the era of the wide-release blockbuster. Its success redefined the studio release model and established the summer season as Hollywood’s premiere showcase for event films.

For Steven Spielberg—who had made his feature debut the year prior with The Sugarland Express—Jaws marked a pivotal ascent. The film cemented his place...

Steven Spielberg Ditched Jaws 2 (Photo Credit – Wikipedia)

Steven Spielberg changed cinema forever when Jaws hit theaters in 1975. It turned beach trips into second thoughts for millions and gave birth to what we now call the summer blockbuster. Now, with its 50th anniversary this year, people are once again diving into the film, not just the original but the sequels too.

Why Jaws 2 Was Made Without Steven Spielberg

Among the sequels, Jaws 2 stands out. It is not because it was great, but because it’s the least bad. It brought back Roy Scheider’s Chief Brody, another shark, and a new director, Jeannot Szwarc. However, the most famous name from the first film was missing as Steven Spielberg didn’t return, and there’s a lot more behind that than some simple refusal.

The iconic director became a force in Hollywood when Jaws exploded at the box office and took home Oscars.

As we continue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of "Jaws," cinema enthusiasts everywhere can wax poetic about the film's impact as the godfather of the modern blockbuster. The 1975 big screen adaptation of Peter Benchley's novel of the same name not only captivated audiences and frightened them from visiting the beach that summer, but it also served as the ultimate calling card for the filmmaker who would be king: Steven Spielberg. After making his feature-length debut with his television film "Duel" and his theatrical debut with "The Sugarland Express," Spielberg ventured into uncharted waters with "Jaws," which was a notoriously difficult production for him.

"Jaws" was a cultural juggernaut, becoming the highest-grossing film ever at the time of its release (a record that Spielberg himself would break two more times with "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and "Jurassic Park"). Adjusted for ticket price inflation, it is the 7th highest-grossing film in history,...

Like many boys growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, Steven Spielberg loved James Bond, the debonair, globe-trotting spy for Her Majesty's Secret Service, and the films starring the dashing Sean Connery. Spielberg told IndieWire that " the only franchise I cared about and wanted to be part of was James Bond," and it was his "pie-in-the-sky dream to make a little movie that would get some notoriety, and then [Bond producer] Cubby Broccoli would call me and ask me to direct the next James Bond picture."

In his early work, Steven Spielberg got to flex his action and thriller genre muscles for the television series "Columbo," which had twisty plots, and his television movie "Duel," which had high-stakes car chases. These were the ideal showcases of his abilities to helm a James Bond movie, but it still wasn't enough to hear from Broccoli. Instead, it was Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown...

It’s Jaws’ 50th birthday—half a century ago, Steven Spielberg’s legendary shark flick swam into theaters, terrified beachgoers, and basically invented the idea of “summer blockbuster”. Now, as Jaws turns the big 5-0, fans everywhere are celebrating this thrilling classic that almost made us stay away from the ocean forever.

But here’s the thing, while we all remember the iconic music and that massive mechanical shark—the real jaw-dropping deal was happening behind the scenes. So, in honor of this milestone, we’re diving deep into 15 outrageous stories behind Steven Spielberg’s greatest movie ever made.

1. Steven Spielberg wasn’t the first choice for Jaws

Before Steven Spielberg jumped into the deep end, Universal Studios eyed The Culpepper Cattle Co. director, Dick Richards, as the initial choice. But unfortunately, Richards was sacked when he kept getting confused between the shark and a whale, in studio meetings. So,...

Jaws is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025, but while fans remember the iconic shark terrorizing Amity Island, few know that the making of this classic was a horror story of its own. Long before Jaws became a pop culture phenomenon and a torch bearer of Hollywood blockbusters, Steven Spielberg was a young director caught in a storm of production nightmares

Behind the scenes, Steven Spielberg was battling tight deadlines, a cranky mechanical shark, and total chaos on set. On top of that, he was just not satisfied with the script. So Spielberg told the screenwriter to “eviscerate it”. That’s how chaotic and anxiety-inducing things were getting on set. So, as we celebrate Jaws, let’s dive into the jaw-dropping story of how it was made.

Universal wanted Jaws fast-tracked and it nearly sank the whole production

It all started when Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws became an instant bestseller...

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."

"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...

How do you follow up a genre-defining, career-making, massively successful cinematic watershed motion picture like "Jaws?" The answer, apparently, is to make a string of sequels that succumb to increasingly diminished returns. While "Jaws 2" is a highly decent yet nowhere near as stellar follow-up that provided essentially more of the same thrills as the original (which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month), "Jaws 3" is rightfully regarded as a massive let-down. Yes, "Jaws 3" is a generally fun, morally prescient time if you take it as a standalone shark thriller movie, but it's still a sad excuse for a sequel to one of the greatest movies ever made. It also begs another, more pressing question: How in the world did this happen?

The answer to that varies with each sequel, of course, and yet there may be a particular circumstance to blame in the case of "Jaws 3.

Jaws made history in 1975, turning a young Steven Spielberg into a household name and boldly establishing the summer blockbuster spectacle that revolutionized the film industry. Winner of three Academy Awards®, including Best Original Score, Jaws has become a global phenomenon, and half a century later, it still holds a grip on audiences around the world. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment celebrates this cinematic milestone with the Jaws 50th Anniversary Edition, available on June 17, 2025 in 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and Digital. This Combo Pack features the never-before-seen documentary, Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story, a brand-new look at the making and legacy of the film directed by Laurent Bouzereau and from National Geographic, in partnership with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Documentaries, Nedland Media, and Wendy Benchley. The disc and digital include over five hours of bonus features with an inside look at the making of the film, deleted scenes, original on-set footage,...

Steven Spielberg rose to prominence during the 1970s, delivering one of the biggest blockbusters of all time with his second theatrical feature film. Jaws was released in 1975, two years before Star Wars changed the perception around Hollywood blockbusters.

As a result, the Spielberg directorial might as well be considered the first true blockbuster. However, the director’s chair almost did not go to Spielberg. In an interview, Spielberg reflected on his experience working on the now classic film.

Director Steven Spielberg (Credit: Time | YouTube).

Spielberg revealed that he initially viewed the film as a sequel to one of his lesser-known projects, given that he was a fairly new director when he was considered for Jaws. However, Spielberg only got the job after a different director fell out of the race, and here is everything you need to know about how Jaws connects to Spielberg’s earliest works.

Steven Spielberg originally...

In 1975, Universal Pictures released a film that would impact the movie industry forever. Titled Jaws, it was directed by a relatively new filmmaker by the name of Steven Spielberg, who had landed the gig when producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown found themselves without a director for the exciting project about the aquatic monster. 50 years later, its legacy remains unquestionable, and TCM, Universal Pictures, and more, plan to throw the 50th birthday bash Jaws deserves.

As reported by Bloody Disgusting, this summer, modern viewers will get the chance to revisit Spielberg's groundbreaking movie. Jaws will return to theaters for the TCM Classic Film Festival in April. However, this won't be the only 50th anniversary presentation, as Universal is planning a nationwide re-release of the movie from Aug. 29 through Sept. 4.

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Considered by many as the greatest decade for horror, these are the 13 best movies of 1970s,...

For the second consecutive year, the Best Picture Oscar has been all in the family.

Husband and wife Sean Baker and Samantha Quan have earned statuettes for producing the comedy-drama “Anora,” one year after spouses Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas won the same award for “Oppenheimer.”

Baker and Quan, who shared the award with producer Alex Coco, are the fourth — or fifth, technically; see the “Lord of the Rings” team below — romantic partners to score the Oscar’s most coveted prize.

Julia Phillips was the first female producer to ever win Best Picture, 51 years ago, for the 1973 mystery drama “The Sting,” which she produced alongside Tony Bill and her then-husband Michael Phillips. They divorced the same year as their Oscar win, but continued to work together, producing “Taxi Driver” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Phillips wrote the brutal, blistering and best-selling memoir “You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again,...

I’ve always avoided New Year’s resolutions, but this week I happened to recall one that was brief but resolute: I resolved to quit Hollywood.

And I did. Almost.

That decision seems relevant today for reasons that require a bit of history. Consider January 1975, 50 years ago: It was a Hollywood moment that was the opposite of the present, both in numbers and nuance. It was a great time to be around – and not to be.

The audience was expanding and was determined to get scared: Jaws was a smash. But millions also were welcoming the weirdities of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. TV fans were puzzled over something new called SNL, and music fans continued to discover Elton John (still are).

As box office kept growing, opportunity was abundant. Words like “downsizing” or “contracting” were still unknown.

There were hints of quantum change, but just hints: The Hollywood...

You can't have "Jaws" without Quint, a modern Captain Ahab if he'd been hunting a great white shark rather than a white whale. It's difficult to picture anyone but Robert Shaw (in one of his last roles before his premature death in 1978) in the part, but the actor actually wasn't who director Steven Spielberg first had in mind.

In "Spielberg: The First Ten Years" by Laurent Bouzereau, Spielberg claimed his first choice for Quint was Lee Marvin. He wanted a big star and Marvin was famous for playing sinister tough guys. See: "The Big Heat," "Point Blank," "The Dirty Dozen," and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (directed by the man who taught Spielberg how to frame a horizon.) Marvin, though, said no. Spielberg recounted: "What I heard was that [Marvin] wanted to go fishing for real! He took his fishing very seriously and didn't want to do it from a 'movie' boat.

While "Jaws" wasn't Steven Spielberg's first movie, it was the movie that put Spielberg on the map. Plagued by production woes (it went over-budget and over-schedule), there was a really good chance that "Jaws" could've ended Spielberg's career just as it was getting started. Instead, the killer shark flick pretty much invented the summer blockbuster as we know it and made Spielberg a superstar. Audiences lined up around the block to see what Spielberg had created, and the massive success pretty much ensured Spielberg could do whatever the hell he wanted for the rest of his career. So what did Spielberg want to do next? Well, it sure wasn't a "Jaws" sequel, that's for sure. In 1975, Spielberg — according to John Baxter's book "Steven Spielberg: The Unauthorised Biography" — scoffed at the idea, saying that making a sequel "is just a cheap carny trick."

But studio Universal definitely wanted a sequel.

Even the mighty Steven Spielberg had a moment where his directing throne was almost snatched from under him. Picture this: just as Jaws was poised to sink its teeth into cinema history, another director nearly swooped in to replace Spielberg for his own breakthrough. Yup, Hollywood’s golden boy faced some stiff competition right before making shark-infested waters iconic.

Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg | image credit: Gage Skidmore/Cc By-sa 2.0/Wikimedia Commons

It’s wild to think that the film that launched Spielberg’s career into the stratosphere could’ve had a totally different captain at the helm. With the pressure on and the studio having second thoughts, it’s a wonder Spielberg held onto his seat—and thank goodness he did. Imagine a world where Jaws wasn’t Spielberg’s big bite into fame!

How a ‘White Whale’ Slip-Up Led Steven Spielberg to Direct Jaws Instead of Dick Richards Steven...

When one talks of artistic collaborations in Hollywood, the duos of Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves, and Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy come to mind immediately for their successful partnerships together. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are not far behind, having shared a memorable association in 5 films and being co-producers on 2 miniseries, Band of Brothers and its spin-off show, The Pacific.

Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan directed by Steven Spielberg (image credit: DreamWorks Pictures)

Spielberg who has done films in almost every genre, had the opportunity to work with Hanks in the comic book space when he was offered to Max Allan Collins‘ graphic novel, Road To Perdition. The director who was impressed with the idea, unfortunately could not commit to it owing to a busy schedule of films under his belt.

Steven Spielberg Came This Close To Helming Road To Perdition

In 2002, Tom Hanks and Paul Newman starred...

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"Jaws" remains the king of savage animal attack horror films, but by today's horror standards it's actually pretty tame. Of course, throughout the history of film, audiences have become increasingly desensitized to these sorts of things, to the point where only brutal splatter-fests like "Terrifier 2" are capable of testing seasoned horror fans. In fact, in the case of Damien Leone's so-called "mega-slasher," there were reports of audiences fainting and vomiting in their seats.

Anyone who knows even a little about "Terrifier 2" will understand why that might have been. The sheer level of brutality on display would make anyone at least slightly queasy. But back in the 1970s it seems audiences were slightly more sensitive.

When "Jaws" released in 1975 it became what many have dubbed the first ever blockbuster, becoming an instant hit and terrifying an entire generation,...

From Olivia Colman’s fraught sojourn to the Greek Isles in The Lost Daughter to Jessie Buckley’s terrifying trip up the M5 to the English countryside in Men and M. Night’s bummer beaches in Old, taking a little “me time” away from home is often the single biggest mistake any movie character could possibly make. Horror, psychological drama, comedy, mystery, rom-com. The genre hardly matters. In film, the simple act of taking a vacation is rarely the relaxing, restorative interlude one hopes that it might be, placing uneasy personalities in uncertain—even harrowing—circumstances.

So with another holiday weekend upon us and the summer theoretically in full swing, it’s time to make peace with travel advisories being a moving target and hot spots foreign and domestic getting hotter by the minute. No surprise then, that many of us now eye these “escapes” with more than a little bit of skepticism.

George Roy Hill's "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" arrived at a moment when the Western, the most American of movie genres, was being appropriated by Italian filmmakers and Hollywood-bred revisionists like Sam Peckinpah and Clint Eastwood. Baby Boomer moviegoers were rejecting the old-fashioned white hat/black hat simplicity of their parents' unquestioning era, and finding resonance in the violent, unsentimental depiction of a manifest destiny recklessly pursued and ruthlessly realized. Tonally and thematically, the new Westerns jibed with their counterculture sensibilities.

While "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" wasn't overtly political, it did appeal to the counterculture audience by teaming one of Hollywood's hottest movie stars in Paul Newman with a ready-to-explode Robert Redford as a couple of carefree outlaws. Hill wisely embraced the aesthetic freedom of the burgeoning New Hollywood revolution, and played directly to his target audience's authority-and convention-flouting tastes. He screwed around with camera placement,...

Revisionist war films rip the shiny veneer off war, showing the grit, the moral ambiguity, and the devastating cost of war. Tora! Tora! Tora!, arguably one of the best World War II films for its exploration of multiple sides in the Japanese attack on America's Pearl Harbor, had a challenging production, including a fatal accident on set. As per the Telegraph, then 20th Century Fox's chairman Darryl Zanuck, wanted to make the most authentic epic film about the attack, making a movie that gave both the American and the Japanese perspective of the conflict. Together with his son Richard Zanuck (then Fox's CEO) and his trusted collaborator, producer Elmo Williams (The Longest Day), they set up two production teams in the US and Japan, with each team providing the respective country's version of these events.

Few living actors have had as many distinct eras to their career as Matthew McConaughey. After becoming a breakout star and the ultimate stoner in Dazed and Confused, his handsome looks and charm soon saw him typecast as the go-to male lead in seemingly every romantic comedy between 2001 and 2009.

After Matthew McConaughey finally grew tired of going through the motions of starring in routine comedies, he set his sights on something more significant: winning an Academy Award. In 2011, he starred in a trio of films meant to course-correct his career: The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, and Killer Joe. Two years later, he'd win the Oscar for Best Actor after starring in Dallas Buyers Club. Since then, McConaughey has appeared in even more critically acclaimed films, some of which have offered the best performances of his career.

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Apple, or at least its technology, was worried about the health and well-being of Hollywood’s greatest director.

In the middle of Steven Spielberg’s Tribeca Festival talk on Saturday, where the filmmaker was celebrating the 50th anniversary of his debut feature, “The Sugarland Express,” he was interrupted by his Apple watch with a message that read “It looks like you’ve taken a hard fall.” Spielberg jokingly said “I’m not going to press the Sos [button]” before throwing it on the ground. “I’ll pick it up later,” he said, only to retrieve it a few minutes later when it started issuing some sort of distress signal.

Before the Q&a began, a taped message from “The Sugarland Express” star Goldie Hawn appeared on the screen, thanking Spielberg and reminiscing about the pivotal moment in her career—and his. The film was released in 1974, just one year before “Jaws,...

Most of the action in Steven Spielberg’s 1974 directorial debut, Sugarland Express, unfolds over the course of an extended car chase as Goldie Hawn and William Atherton’s characters try to evade a long convoy of police vehicles in an effort to regain custody of their young son from foster care.

While the film predated high-speed freeway car chases, modern audiences might be reminded of such events, including O.J. Simpson’s infamous white Bronco chase, which unfolded roughly 30 years ago, on June 17, 1994.

And sure enough, Spielberg himself admitted he thought of his own film when he saw the Bronco chase, which riveted audiences as it took over TV.

Speaking after a 50th-anniversary screening of Sugarland at the 2024 Tribeca Festival, Spielberg jokingly said he thought, “Shit, they’re stealing my thunder,” when he saw the Simpson chase.

Elsewhere during the post-screening Q&a, Spielberg reflected on making the film, including casting lead...

In one of this year’s climaxes at the Tribeca Festival, Steven Spielberg showed off his first major studio theatrical release, Sugarland Express, which celebrates 50 years.

“You’re the first audience to ever see Sugarland Express in 50 years,” joked the 3x Oscar-winning filmmaker at the packed Bmcc screening in the lower west side of Manhattan.

How’s that? Spielberg said Universal pulled the movie out of theaters after two weeks as no one went to see it despite good reviews. The movie repped his first big screen release after cutting his teeth as a TV director, and it preceded his work on 1975’s Jaws, the blockbuster that would give definition to the word tentpole.

Sugarland Express failed at the box office per Spielberg, as audiences wanted to see a lighthearted Goldie Hawn in the movie, not to mention, it had a tragic ending.

Here are some of the memories Spielberg...

The 1970 war epic "Tora! Tora! Tora!" takes place from August 1939 to December 1941, dramatizing the wartime events that led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film alternately follows the American and the Japanese military during the same 29-month period, with the American sequences directed by Richard Fleischer and the Japanese sequences directed by Kinji Fukusaku (of "Battle Royale" fame) and Toshiro Masuda. 20th Century Fox ultra-producer Darryl F. Zanuck conceived of the project, as he wanted to give a proper telling of both sides of Pearl Harbor while also wanting to partially exonerate the American military (which had previously been blamed for its inability to prevent the attack).

Planning and shooting "Tora!" took an amazingly long amount of time. Pre-production wrangling lasted about three years, with principal photography taking an entire eight months. To make sure the Japanese segments would be handled by a master, Fox hired Akira Kurosawa to co-direct.

For only the second time in its 15 year history there is no actor among the honorees for this year’s select group receiving the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Governors Awards. The AMPAS Board Of Governors have chosen to give Academy Honorary Awards to music legend Quincy Jones and veteran Casting Director Juliet Taylor, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to British writer/director Richard Curtis, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. The awards ceremony, always a highlight in the very long Oscar season will take place on Sunday November 17, 2024 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood.

You have to go back to the 4th Governors Awards in 2012 to find a group that did not include at least one actor among its recipients. That year the honorees were documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, director/stuntman Hal Needham, AFI founder and producer/filmmaker George Stevens Jr.,...

Throughout the 1950s, big-budget musicals were de rigueur for Hollywood, and there was a sudden glut of epics that sported gigantic budgets, recognizable stars, and no small amount of studio hype. Such films were exhibited as touring roadshow productions, which was a great way for films to make fistfuls of cash. Roadshow epics were also, it should be noted, a concerted ploy by studios to distract audiences from the rising threat of television. Studios felt the need to invest a lot of money into musicals and epics, hoping the massive productions could draw people into theaters and keep the industry afloat.

One might logically predict, however, that Hollywood tried to ride the trend of epics for a little longer than was healthy, and foolish overspending eventually became common. The age of the "roadshow epic" pretty much came to a close with the release of the notorious bomb "Cleopatra" in 1963. 

But then,...

Jaws 2 struggled to reach the highs of the original hit, repeating its predecessor's plot points. The 3-D gimmick of the third Jaws film contributed to its maligned reception. The franchise ended with Jaws: The Revenge, which suffered from a troubled production and questionable creative decisions.

The impact of Steven Spielberg's Jaws on the film industry cannot be overstated. The film is largely responsible for establishing the summer blockbuster season that studios still stick to nearly fifty years later. It's easy to see why Jaws captured moviegoers' attention the world over: Roy Scheider, Richard Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss' performances are top-tier, John Williams' score was instantly iconic, and the visual effects still look fantastic. Even without factoring in the aggressive marketing from Universal, Jaws was essentially destined to be a success.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the three Jaws sequels. The decline in quality of the Jaws films is,...

Note: This article discusses sexual misconduct and abuse.

As much as I roll my eyes at Joe Russo blaming Marvel's pandemic-era box office woes on the children, he's right about one thing: Hollywood, like the world at large, is at a crossroads at the time of this writing. Superhero films, which have been the bread and butter of the industry for most of the 21st century, are no longer a reliable draw. We also find ourselves in a curious place where franchise fatigue seems to be settling in, yet it remains challenging for anything that isn't based on an IP to find financial success. At the same time, the growing popularity of smaller and scrappier fare from studios like A24 could point to a way forward.

It's a lot like the 1960s, when you think about it. By the end of that decade, the American New Wave was in full swing.

Is "Jaws" the greatest movie ever made? An impossible question to answer, but it's my favorite and the one I've rewatched the most as an adult. I've been lucky enough to see it in theaters a couple of times, including for the IMAX restoration in 2022. As gorgeous as "Jaws" looked in IMAX, the trailer for the restoration is downright uncanny. Almost 50-year-old footage is cut together with modern trailer editing rhythm, from the jumpiness to turning Chief Martin Brody's (Roy Scheider) "You're gonna need a bigger boat" line into the kind of funny stinger you might see in a Marvel Studios trailer.

Now, in the movie, that line happens right after the jump scare where the shark first appears, rearing up behind Brody as he's throwing chum off the stern of The Orca, Quint's (Robert Shaw) fishing boat. Brody's back is turned when the shark breaches the water,...

Steven Spielberg’s 1975 cult-classic film Jaws remains one of the greatest films of all time and is considered the definitive shark film by many, but fans would be shocked to know that he was not originally the director attached to the project. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine another filmmaker stepping into the boat.

Jaws (1975)

How the famed filmmaker got the gig was quite an interesting one. Although he was not the first choice, he made the film his own even though it cost him so much mental and emotional stress.

Steven Spielberg Was Not The First Choice To Direct Jaws

In an interview for Laurent Bouzereau’s book Spielberg: The First Ten Years via Vanity Fair, director Steven Spielberg revealed how he snagged the project that was already in the hands of another creative.

“That was that, until I got a call from Dick asking me to come meet with him and David.

What if Bruce, the mechanical shark in "Jaws," had actually worked? It's one of the biggest what-ifs in Hollywood history. While the movie's Great White Shark may have been "a perfect engine" (to quote Richard Dreyfuss' bespectacled scientist Matt Hooper), Bruce -- who got its moniker from Steven Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce Ramer -- was anything but. Because of this, Spielberg and editor Verna Fields were forced to reconfigure the film's raw footage to avoid showing "The Great White Turd" (as the movie's crew came to call it) as much as possible. What emerged was a triumph of minimalistic horror filmmaking where what you don't see is just as terrifying as what you do, if not more so.

But what if Spielberg had never gotten to direct one of his all-time best movies to begin with? It's easy to recognize in hindsight that ol' Stevie Boy was fated to adapt Peter Benchley's pulpy best-seller,...

What Oscar records will be broken and which ones will remain intact at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony March 10. With a win, Billie Eilish, 22, and Finneas, 26, would become the youngest artists ever to win two Oscars before the age of 30. The pair won for James Bond theme “No Time to Die” in 2022, and are nominated this year for “What Was I Made For,” from “Barbie.” Only three individuals have clinched two Oscars before turning 30: Luise Rainer earned back to back Oscars by the time she was 28 for “The Great Ziegfeld” (1936) and “The Good Earth” (1937); Jodie Foster in 1989 for “The Accused” (age 26) and in 1992 for “The Silence of the Lambs” (29); and Hilary Swank in 2000 for “Boys Don’t Cry” (26) and in 2005 for “Million Dollar Baby” (29).

Meanwhile, Diane Warren faces a less enviable milestone with her 15th nomination for “The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot,” potentially tying with the late Alex North...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best Picture

Weekly Commentary: Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic “Oppenheimer,” narrating the saga of the father of the atomic bomb, is poised to sweep the Oscars. Having clinched every major guild and industry accolade – BAFTA, Critics Choice, Golden Globes, DGA, PGA, and SAG – it’s the first...

Planet of the Apes is one of the most successful and durable science fiction franchises in Hollywood history. Starting in 1968 with the original film, the Apes series has generated more than $2.1 billion in box office grosses over the course of just nine movies, with a highly-anticipated 10th entry, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, due for release this May. The property has also spawned both a live-action and animated TV series, books, comics, video games, and toys – the latter produced in the wake of the first film’s success and arguably the template for future movie merchandising campaigns.

And yet, as we’ve seen over and over again with blockbuster pop culture milestones like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and numerous others, Hollywood at the beginning was loathe to touch the property. After publicist-turned-producer Arthur P. Jacobs secured the rights to the novel upon which the original film was based,...

For most of us, the Planet of the Apes movies have always been around. Spanning five decades and ten movies – and counting – it’s hard to imagine a world without that race of hyper-intelligent monkeys and their everlasting war against man. We take this extended universe for granted, but it wasn’t always this way. It’s probably not hard to believe that at one time, the concept of a world populated by talking apes wasn’t thought of as a box office draw, and if it hadn’t been for the determination of a handful of true believers in the material, we may never have gotten one movie, let alone an entire franchise. So let’s go back in time a bit to a world without Dr. Zaius and the gang and find out Wtf Happened to Planet of the Apes?

We’re going back as far as 1963, when...

The Palm Beverly Hills has closed. Long the shorthand for industry power dining, it was for years run by Bruce Bozzi, the fourth generation in the family steakhouse business. A complicated court battle led to a 2020 sale to the hospitality firm Landry’s, whose brands include Del Frisco’s, Mastro’s and Morton’s. Below, Bozzi — husband of CAA co-chair Bryan Lourd and buzzy podcaster — sums up the storied, singular, nearly half-century run of the restaurant, which opened in West Hollywood in 1975 (where it was known for the many celebrity caricatures on the walls) and moved to Beverly Hills in 2014.

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You won’t be able to tell the story of Hollywood without The Palm. It’s where on the same day you’d find Richard Zanuck in one booth, Bernie Brillstein in another and Mike Ovitz in a third. My favorite screen memory is Karen Walker in Will & Grace...

M*A*S*H movie's success almost killed the TV show before it started due to plans for a sequel, but the sequel fell apart. William Self, president of 20th Century Fox Television, was interested in a TV show adaptation before the movie was released. Richard D. Zanuck canceled the sequel and gave the green light to the TV show, which became a groundbreaking sitcom and CBS hit.

M*A*S*H is one of the most popular and acclaimed sitcoms ever made, but the success of the movie it was based on threatened to kill the TV show before it even got started. With its pitch-black humor and rebellious, anti-establishment tone, Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H became one of the defining movies of the New Hollywood movement – and one of the biggest box office hits of the 1970s. It takes place during the Korean War, but its storytelling and social commentary captured contemporary attitudes towards the then-ongoing Vietnam War,...

The iconic thriller Jaws did for the ocean what Psycho (1960) did for showers: No one wanted to go in them after seeing these films! In 1975, director Steven Spielberg’s terrifying blockbuster descended onto an unsuspecting moviegoing public, and it became one of the most memorable horror films of all time. Going up against the great white shark are a trio of unlikely heroes: Brody (Roy Scheider), Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and Quint (Robert Shaw). However, casting Quint wasn’t a slam dunk. And that choice had repercussions which almost led to fisticuffs on the set.

According to an interview with Vanity Fair, Spielberg wanted Hollywood veteran Lee Marvin to play the team’s shark hunter. But, in the end, Spielberg hired Robert Shaw to tackle the eccentric personality. Spielberg told Vanity Fair:

"There were other actors who wanted to play Quint, and then Dick Zanuck and David Brown suggested Robert Shaw...

Robert Shaw's casting as Quint in Jaws was not Spielberg's first choice, and initially brought some concerns from producers. Shaw's drinking habits led to some outrageous behavior during production, including nearly getting in a fight with producer Richard D. Zanuck after Shaw lost a ping-pong game to him. Despite appearing only in the latter half of Jaws, Shaw's portrayal of Quint made him a memorable character and is one of the actor's most iconic performances.

It took some time for Steven Spielberg to cast one legendary role in Jaws, and his eventual choice almost caused a fistfight on set. Jaws is all about a deadly shark making its way through the fictional New England beach town Amity Island and hunting everyday people along the way. It was a surprise success, drawing in over $475 million at the box office across various releases in 40 years, while the strength of its premise,...

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

It happens every so often: two Hollywood movies come out around the same time, with a shockingly similar premise. There was "Top Gun" and "Iron Eagle" in 1986, "Dante's Peak" and "Volcano" in 1997, and in more recent times, "Hercules" and "The Legend of Hercules" in 2014. But the most infamous of these twin films battles took place in the summer of '98, when "Deep Impact" went up against "Armageddon" as the two asteroid disaster flicks battled it out for box office supremacy. Ultimately, Michael Bay's "Armageddon" came out on top.

It's not as though director Mimi Leder's "Deep Impact" was a failure — in fact, by many metrics, it was a gigantic success. It's just that it wasn't quite as big as Bay's bombastic spectacle starring Bruce Willis,...

Tár writer/director Todd Field discusses a few of his favorite movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary

Tár (2022)

Man With A Movie Camera (1929)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

The Big Parade (1925)

Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

The Crowd (1928)

Star Wars (1977)

The Servant (1963)

Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review

The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Figures In A Landscape (1970)

M (1931)

M (1951)

I Am Cuba (1964)

The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Letter Never Sent (1960)

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary

The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)

The Sting (1973)

The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Thelma And Louise (1991)

Murmur Of The Heart (1971)

The Silent World (1956)

Opening Night (1977)

The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...

The original "Planet of the Apes" remains one of the best sci-fi movies of all time. This is a movie with incredible makeup effects that hold up to this day, an air-tight script with poignant social commentary co-written by "The Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling, and a stellar performance by Roddy McDowall.

Of course, the film is arguably best remembered for having one of the greatest and most memorable twist endings in all of cinema, which Tim Burton utterly failed to replicate. The ending of "Planet of the Apes" has been referenced and parodied to death for decades — though, if you somehow have remained unsullied until now, we will not ruin it. It is also an ending that is rather hard to top, though that didn't stop Twentieth Century Fox from trying.

One thing that makes the "Planet of the Apes" franchise so unique is that it is an extremely...

The Jaws movie series is one of the greatest suspense thrillers. Produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, the series had a troubled production, owing to its over budget and behind schedule.

However, the series grabbed three Academy Awards, including best film editing, original dramatic score, and sound.

Viewers of Jaws movie can be stunned at the quality and realism of the film made in 1975. Directed by Steven Spielberg, cast of Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss, the movie captures pure terror in scenes.

Many viewers believe that the original Jaws movie produced in 1975 is a classic film among all the Jaws series. “Jaws” was so successful that it led to three sequels.

The four films have earned nearly 800 million worldwide at the box office. Despite the success of these films, critics and audiences were largely dissatisfied with the sequels.

The original Jaws movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, is a...

In silver screen Westerns, fantasy paints over reality. Real-life figures of that era, from lawmen like Wyatt Earp to outlaws like Jesse James, are as much heroes of cinema as fictional ones like the Man with No Name.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is one of the most famous cases of the former. It's also an unusual Western; its focus is foremost on character and comedy, while shootouts are secondary. It has an unconventional structure, with both a half-hour long chase scene that sustains suspense all the way, mixed with leisurely, vignette-structured pacing of contemporary New Hollywood films. When the film debuted in 1969, Westerns were on their way out. Reflecting history and the genre's twilight, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" end with the pair dying at the hands of the Bolivian army.

Screenwriter William Goldman was attracted to the story of Cassidy and Sundance because it was unusual for a cowboy,...

In a lot of ways, one of the reasons "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" remains such an enduring western is because it wasn't afraid to break some genre rules. Both screenwriter William Goldman and director George Roy Hill injected their own idiosyncrasies into this retelling of the two infamous outlaws. It's why the movie has just as many laughs as it does shootouts — fluctuating perfectly between slapstick and dryly delivered one-liners. Hill even went out of his way to remove some of its funnier moments after he decided the audience was laughing too much at a screening.

But such tonal shifts are exactly what makes "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" so unique and mold-breaking. Like the Burt Bacharach soundtracked bicycle montage scene in which he lulls away at "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" — which was actually written for the film. At worst jarringly anachronistic, the presence of...

If Steven Spielberg had his way in 1974, he would've left "Jaws" during preproduction and signed on to direct the prohibition-era comedy "Lucky Lady." If you're asking, "What the heck was 'Lucky Lady'," well, we'll get to that.

Let's skip back a year to 1973. Spielberg had just completed "The Sugarland Express" for producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, and was hearing rumblings about one of the duo's latest acquisitions: a soon-to-be-published novel titled "Jaws" by Peter Benchley. Spielberg wanted the gig, but Zanuck and Brown had already assigned it to Dick Richards on the strength of his critically acclaimed directorial debut, "The Culpepper...

The post Steven Spielberg Worried Jaws Would Sink His Young Career appeared first on /Film.

“There are some fish that cannot be caught. It’s not that they are faster or stronger than other fish, they’re just touched by something extra.”

Tim Burton’s Big Fish will be available on 4K Ultra HD May 4th. Throughout his life Edward Bloom (Ewan McGregor) has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, portrayed by five-time Best Actor Oscar nominee Albert Finney, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William (Billy Crudup). Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures in this marvel of a movie.

Disc Details & Bonus Material

4K Ultra HD Disc

Newly Remastered in 4K resolution from the original camera negative, with HDR10All-new Dolby Atmos audio + original theatrical 5.1 audio

Blu-ray Disc

Feature presented in HD, sourced from...