First official Jaws documentary to examine film’s impact 50 years on
By Casey Cooper-Fiske, PA Entertainment Reporter
The first authorised Jaws documentary is to examine the film’s impact on the perception of sharks to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary.
Jaws At 50: The Definitive Inside Story will feature interviews with director Steven Spielberg, Ian Shaw, the son of Robert Shaw – who played professional shark hunter Quint, and Lorraine Gary who played Ellen Brody, along with other cast members, when it airs on National Geographic and Disney+.
The 90-minute documentary will also feature home videos and rare outtakes from Spielberg and writer Peter Benchley’s personal archives, and a behind the scenes look at the making of the movie, including its malfunctioning animatronic shark and Spielberg’s fears the film would end his career.
The feature will also look at the wave of shark fear from the public following the movie’s release, and will look at the novel which started the story through interviews with Benchley’s wife, ocean policy advocate Wendy Benchley and their children.
Famous fans including JJ Abrams, Emily Blunt, James Cameron, Cameron Crowe, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, Guillermo del Toro and Robert Zemeckis will also speak about the film along with marine experts.
Jaws At 50: The Definitive Inside Story will be directed by Laurent Bouzereau, and will be produced by Spielberg’s Amblin Documentaries and Nedland Films.
The documentary frames Jaws, released in 1975, as the “first summer blockbuster”, with the movie being the highest-grossing picture of all time until the release of Star Wars two years later.
Jaws tells the story of a man-eating shark, named Bruce by the film’s crew, that attacks beachgoers at a resort town on Amity Island, and the attempts of police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and professional shark hunter Quint (Shaw) to hunt it down.
The film, based on the 1974 novel by Benchley, was followed by three sequels, and has inspired theme park rides at the Universal Studios theme parks as well as video games.
The documentary will premiere on July 11th at 8pm on National Geographic and will stream the same day on Disney+.