Jaws 2 (1978)
Shortly after the monumental success of Jaws, Universal Pictures wanted Steven Spielberg to follow up with another entry as part of a four-picture deal he signed with them. He didn’t bother to entertain that offer. He had already made the ultimate shark movie. Following that up could only disappoint, especially in the 1970s, when the industry viewed sequels as inferior forms of films.
Jaws producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown didn’t think Jaws needed a sequel, but Universal would make it with or without them. The had first-dibs rights, and choosing not to be involved would be giving millions to a competitor. But what to do? Universal approached “Jaws” author Peter Benchley for ideas. Benchley mentioned they could find a mythical 100-foot shark somewhere. But Benchley became too involved in writing his next novel, “The Deep,” to script. Arthur C. Clarke was also approached for a script, suggesting the title Tentacles, about a giant squid threatening an oil refinery in the Indian Ocean. That idea was too far afield.
Playwright Howard Sackler, who performed uncredited work on Jaws, thought they should make a prequel involving a young Quint during the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in WWII, the story he related in Jaws. Universal Pictures head Sid Sheinberg said no. He said the public would want “more Jaws”: more Brody, more Amity, more of Mayor Vaughn, and more beach community in danger.
Roy Scheider didn’t want to return. The first film could never be topped, and its shoot proved so grueling that he “didn’t intend to go through that hell again.” However, Scheider had signed a three-picture deal with Universal after Jaws. He was finishing up the first, Sorcerer, but unceremoniously bailed on the second, The Deer Hunter, because of changes to his part (recast with Robert De Niro). Universal leveraged that incident to pressure him into taking Jaws 2. Scheider went in kicking and screaming. He smashed up his room at the Beverly Hills Hotel to make them think he had a mental breakdown hoping they’d scrap the idea.
To get Scheider to carry through to completion, the studio negotiated a new deal. They offered four times his Jaws salary ($500k), a profit percentage, and it counted as two films, ending his contractual obligation once completed. He also would receive an additional $35,000 for every week the shoot ran over schedule. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse either way.
Because Sid Sheinberg wanted “more Jaws,” Zanuck and Brown wanted that to be the title – More Jaws. Market testing found that people viewed More Jaws as a humorous and frivolous title, so they reluctantly went with Jaws 2, marking Hollywood’s first use of the numeral “2” instead of a Roman “II” for a sequel title.
Jaws co-writer Carl Gottlieb was asked to script but wanted too much money. They returned to David Brown’s friend, Howard Sackler, who got the job. Sackler incorporated elements from Benchley’s “Jaws” novel previously left on the cutting room floor: the mayor’s involvement with the mafia on a real-estate deal, an affair for Ellen Brody, and financial repercussions for the island of Amity. Sackler envisioned an Amity with paranoid Brody on edge, and Mayor Vaughn courting a real-estate developer looking to build a hotel locally. A new character named Boyle comes to Amity to turn Quint’s shark shack Into a tourist attraction. Brody loses his job for claiming shark attacks without enough evidence, eventually shown to be right all along. Brody and Boyle hunt for the shark on Peterson’s yacht only to find the shark is hunting them too. The shark dies by getting shredded in the yacht’s propellers.
Because Richard Dreyfuss was working on Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, they tried to recast the Matt Hooper part with Swedish actor Erland Josephson. Still, he declined, stating that he’d rather have intellectual battles with Liv Ullman than fight some shark. They opted to cut the role.
For the director, Sackler recommended someone he had come to know through social circles, John Hancock. Hancock directed the acclaimed 1973 baseball drama Bang the Drum Slowly, and had horror experience with the 1971 chiller Let’s Scare Jessica to Death. Although an odd choice to take on a blockbuster shark film, the producers were personally familiar with Hancock and reasoned that his eclectic background would work in the sequel’s favor. Hancock took their job offer because of the opportunity to make a big action picture, which he felt a surprising excitement to do, at least at first.
Hancock felt Sackler’s script was uninspiring, asking screenwriter Nancy Dowd for a touch-up. After Dowd declined, Hancock’s actress wife Dorothy Tristan gave it a read and offered suggestions for making it more exciting and scary. Hancock loved Tristan’s ideas and relayed her recommendations to Zanuck and Brown, who told them they should revise Sackler’s script. Tristan, cut out characters like Boyle and put teen characters into the story, including one revealed to be the son of Quint from the first Jaws who wanted to collect the shark-hunting reward for his father. Tristan also gave the shark in Jaws 2 an emotional tie-in by making her the pregnant mate of the shark from the first film and came up with a new ending involving an electrical cable under the ocean. The producers seemed enthusiastic, and Sid Sheinberg felt that putting teenagers into the film would vastly increase the merchandising opportunities, so he approved.
Despite production problems and bad sentiment from the Martha’s Vineyard locals on Jaws, the producers felt things would be better for the sequel because they only planned exteriors in Edgartown before relocating. To reduce strain and expenditures, they would need to shoot somewhere else for the ocean scenes. After contemplating the Carolinas and Guaymas, Mexico, production designer/associate producer/second-unit director Joe Alves suggested in and around Navarre Beach, Florida (near Pensacola), for the ocean shoot. The water is warmer, the ocean offshore deep enough for the sharks, and the area less trafficked by other boats. However, casting proved challenging because it was hard to find teenagers able to travel away from home.
After three weeks of shooting in Martha’s Vineyard, creative differences emerged. Hancock and Tristan’s tone was decidedly dark, with a PTSD-afflicted Brody hallucinating sharks everywhere he looks. Hancock saw the story as bleak and depressing. He wanted an Amity to be a ghost town, full of fog and darkness to evoke the financial despair they were undergoing. Zanuck and Brown insisted that the film resemble the first Jaws – sunny, warm, and colorful. Hancock grew incensed and opened up a host of grievances. He complained that the shark never worked. He became weary of artistic conflicts between the producers and Sheinberg as well as within the cast. He felt pressures that Sheinberg pushed to get his wife Lorraine Gary a more prominent role. He felt alienated by a disgruntled Roy Scheider constantly criticizing the dialogue and changing his and other actors’ lines.
After hearing from several crewmembers that Hancock was making continuity mistakes galore and producing unusable results, Sheinberg paid a visit. Observing the footage firsthand, Sheinberg wanted Hancock gone and replaced by Universal’s Vice President for Feature Production Verna Fields, who edited the first Jaws. Joe Alves also offered directorial support to avoid a lengthy search for a new director to meet the deadline of June 16, 1978. Although Zanuck was against the move because it shifted too much power to the studio, Fields and Alves were offered the job. However, they could not get the necessary Directors Guild waiver because they were not DGA members and had no directorial experience. Otto Preminger and John Frankenheimer offered to step in, but they wanted several months’ worth of preparation time.
The producers asked Alves, who was finishing production design on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, to see if Steven Spielberg might be interested again. Spielberg said he could do it, but with hefty conditions. He needed at least two more months for post-production on Close Encounters. He also wanted six additional months to develop Sackler’s USS Indianapolis idea, plus $1 million and a substantial profit percentage. Given they already spent $5 million at this point, the bath they would take financially from postponing their release date, and the sizable cut of profits demanded by Spielberg, they opted to decline and find a director willing to start as quickly as possible.
After everyone else turned them down, the producers settled for a French-born journeyman TV director recommended by Alves from their days working on the TV show, “Night Gallery,” Jeannot Szwarc. Szwarc said he could get everything back up and running within three weeks, starting by shooting a big action sequence for the beginning of the film while they retooled the production and script. Zanuck and Brown considered it a good omen that Szwarc had a similar background to Spielberg. Both were self-taught directors with a passion for cinema who worked on “Night Gallery.”
Szwarc applied a different approach to Spielberg in terms of the shark. Spielberg didn’t show his shark until the second half of the movie. Szwarc felt there was no need to hide a shark the audience had already seen. He would show the shark as much as possible, and surprise audiences by doing things with it they might not expect. One new invention was showing the shark’s point of view, done by having a cameraman in a saddle atop the mechanical shark’s back. The shark would also do crazier things, like attacking an amphibious helicopter.
The three sharks from Jaws were unusable save for their outer frames. Once again, Alves helped Bob Mattey design more sophisticated sharks using those frames, with adjustable heads and pneumatics that handled new maneuvers. The new shark, depending on what you read, was either called, “Bruce II,” “Brucette” (a carryover from when it was to be a female shark), Scarface (because of its burnt head), or “Fidel” after Fidel Castro, who extolled the virtues of Jaws, which he viewed it as a brilliant metaphor for the evils of capitalism.
For the final script, they hired Jaws co-writer Carl Gottlieb, paying much more than the price he asked for when they turned him down. Gottlieb streamlined the teen characters because Szwarc said too many of them were similar (tall blonde beach boys). Mark Gilpin replaced Six-year-old Ricky Schroder for Sean Brody. Szwarc said Schroder came across as excessively whiny and was too pretty to be the son of Martin and Ellen. Tegan West as Mike Brody, the elder son, was recast with Mark Gruner. They also reinstated Jeffrey Kramer as Deputy Hendricks. Kramer dropped out of Hancock’s version when he lost most of his lines to another actor Hancock liked better (Marshall Efron). Szwarc loved Deputy Hendricks in Jaws, so he removed the other deputy when Kramer returned.
Dana Elcar played Peterson, a mob boss in Hancock’s version, but Szwarc replaced him with a favorite actor, Joseph Mascolo. They rewrote the Peterson role to be less menacing to rework the affair subplot with Ellen Brody that they later trimmed out. Gottlieb added more personality traits among the teens to distinguish them. He also invented a sailing youth culture of sailing as a means for them to hang out and connect, akin to going out cruising in cars. The teen actors had a great deal of downtime, which, in addition to “romances” forming, allowed them to improvise skits and character touches that Szwarc used in the film.
Problems with the ocean shoot persisted. Sailboats ran into cables, ship traffic caused delays, naval jets flew overhead regularly, the mechanized sharks needed fixing daily, and two hurricanes paused production. The first assistant director injured his spine when a swell knocked him into a boat. One of Bob Mattey’s crew suffered broken ribs after getting crushed by the shark machinery. Several divers were stung by jellyfish. And their star, Roy Scheider, cracked a couple of ribs slipping on the desk of the police boat. David Brown called it the most dangerous film ever made. Environmentalists complained when 20 seagulls in captivity for the film died after getting drugged by the animal trainer.
The danger wasn’t just in the ocean. Szwarc and Scheider butted heads daily, forcing David Brown to intervene. Scheider contended that Szwarc spent so much time with the mechanical shark and the kids that he felt neglected. Szwarc countered that with technical problems and inexperienced actors, he didn’t need to cater to his star’s ego. That sparked a physical altercation that resulted in Brown getting between them and Verna Fields sitting on top of all of them men to get them to stop, which they did with laughter and mutual understanding. From then on, Szwarc checked in with Scheider for input and creative opinion, but Scheider grew increasingly unhappy as the shoot dragged on for several more months.
Another setback occurred when David Brown received a message from one of his spies on the set that Murray Hamilton was on the verge of quitting. Brown caught him with his bags packed and asked for an explanation. Hamilton explained that his wife was having a biopsy for cancer, and he had to be there for her. If he quit, they’d have to recast the part, rewrite the script, and reshoot any scenes he was in, and missing their pre-booked date and lose millions. Brown convinced him to give them two more days to shoot the remainder of his scenes. Luckily, Hamilton’s wife didn’t have cancer.
The shoot in Florida extended through December. The water was freezing, and they had no days off. Additional pickup shots took place in California at Santa Catalina Island, Long Beach, and the backlot at Universal. They reshot scenes from Martha’s Vineyard with a brighter and more optimistic view of Amity. Szwarc wanted a glossier look, estimating that only about 90 seconds of the completed film is Hancock’s, whose work he called the worst thing he had ever seen in his life.
Jaws 2 is set four years after Jaws, in the same island community of Amity. Chief Brody (Scheider) still patrols, though now shaken from his ordeal with the shark. Mayor Vaughn (Hamilton) is catering to a land developer on the construction of new waterfront condominiums that will be very lucrative for a town still struggling to bring in tourists after the shark attacks of the past. When calamities occur again in the ocean, Brody becomes suspicious that another shark is on the prowl. Once again, the mayor and city council of the town refuse to listen due to economic interests. Brody persists until he loses his job, but still must act, this time as a father, when his sons and their friends become stranded in the ocean with no one but a crazed shark in sight.
Unlike the first Jaws, there was no bestselling Peter Benchley novel to help whet the appetite for the film. They commissioned a novelization of Jaws 2, hoping to generate similar buzz. However, the Hank Searls novelization was based on the Dorothy Tristan revision to the Howard Sackler screenplay and differed substantially from the film. Bantam had the first chapter published in over 31 major newspapers and magazines to promote the book and movie.
Jaws 2 started with a budget of $10 million, which is low considering the first film was, until Star Wars, the highest-grossing movie of all time. Prolonged delays, reshoots, personnel issues, and locale changes escalated the budget to $30 million, making it Universal’s most expensive film to date. Universal needn’t have worried. Jaws 2 coasted off of its predecessor’s popularity to score $77 million in the United States and $106 million internationally, making it the highest-grossing sequel ever, until 1979’s Rocky II.
Free from contractual obligations, Scheider proclaimed he would never do another Jaws movie; he had experienced enough ocean, boats, and fake sharks for a lifetime. He wasn’t a fan of the sequel; the only compliment he gave is that it holds together. Spielberg did not think it was a good film at all.
Although it doesn’t come close to the masterpiece that was the original Jaws, this sequel still dishes out the carnage and modest scares that people expect. While no Spielberg, Szwarc delivered the film to the finish line respectably. He held the challenging shoot together in skillful fashion and produced an entertaining enough movie for the fans.
Roy Scheider’s performance lends credibility. When he’s on-screen, the film comes close to capturing the intrigue that makes the original film so riveting. Unfortunately, since he isn’t the one in peril, Scheider doesn’t always appear, necessitating the inexperienced teen actors to take center stage for long stretches. While not terrible, they’re a far cry from evoking the masterful chemistry that Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss generated.
Despite impressive shark attacks, gone is the ability to shock the audience. Without many thrills, Jaws 2 goes through predictable motions, occasionally rising to the surface with a new twist, but remains stagnant for long periods in between. Trimming out some of the excessively long sailing shots might tighten the pace, as the middle third of the film sags from a lack of eventful happenings. Things pick up speed again for a lively finale.
Jaws 2 is a giant step down from the landmark first film but remains better than most of the knock-offs that glutted theaters in the post-Jaws era. It may not get the adrenaline pumping as you’d expect. However, it’s also not without merit, and Scheider is still quite engaging in his best character portrayal in his distinguished career. While it lacked the excitement and sheer ferocity of Jaws, this sequel is worthwhile for those clamoring for a continuation.
Qwipster’s rating: B-
MPAA Rated: PG for violence and language
Running Time: 117 min.
Cast: Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Joseph Mascolo, Mark Gruner, Keith Gordon, Mark Gilpin, Ann Dusenberry, Donna Wilkes, Billy Van Zandt
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Screenplay: Carl Gottlieb, Howard Sackler