143 Fun Facts About Jaws

Which line does Chief Brody say after first seeing the shark up close?

"You're gonna need a bigger boat" was ad-libbed by Roy Scheider; test audiences screamed so loudly at the shark that the line had to be made louder in the edit.

The film was adapted from a 1974 novel by which author?

Benchley's novel was a bestseller before the film existed. He later regretted how it shaped public fear of sharks.

What do two boys use to cause a false shark alarm at the crowded Amity beach?

A cardboard fin: the two boys' snorkel prank empties the water in a panic, and while everyone is watching them the real shark slips into the nearby estuary.

What is the name of the police chief played by Roy Scheider?

Brody is a transplanted city cop who is afraid of the water — a detail that pays off in the final act.

What does Richard Dreyfuss's character Matt Hooper do for a living?

Hooper is a marine biologist from the Oceanographic Institute, a wealthy young specialist whose modern equipment puts him at odds with Quint's old-school methods.

What is the name of the boat the three men take out to hunt the shark?

Orca is Quint's own boat, named after the one sea predator known to hunt great white sharks, a fitting choice for a skipper obsessed with killing them.

What nickname did the Jaws crew give the three malfunctioning mechanical sharks?

Bruce: three full-size pneumatic props were built, and salt water kept breaking them, so Spielberg mostly hinted at the shark with a fin and music instead of showing it.

Amity's officials refuse to close the beaches ahead of which holiday weekend?

The Fourth of July is Amity's biggest payday, so the mayor keeps the beaches open, and on the holiday itself the shark swims into the estuary beside the packed beach.

What is the surname of the mayor who insists on keeping the beaches open?

Vaughn, the mayor in the anchor-print blazer, plays down each attack until the shark nearly reaches Brody's son; shaken, he then signs the paper hiring Quint.

What is the name of the young woman killed in the opening scene of Jaws?

Chrissie Watkins is dragged under during a night swim; stuntwoman Susan Backlinie was strapped into a harness and yanked about by cables to fake the attack.

Jaws won three Academy Awards: Best Sound, Best Original Score and which other?

Best Film Editing went to the film's editor, and within a year Universal had made her a vice-president, one of the first women to reach that level at a major studio.

Which film beat Jaws to Best Picture at the 1976 Academy Awards?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest took all five top Oscars in 1976, so Jaws, the year's biggest hit, went home with three craft awards and no Best Picture.

Who composed the score for Jaws, including its two-note shark motif?

John Williams won an Oscar for the score; when he first played the two notes on a piano, Spielberg laughed, thinking it was a joke.

Which camera trick shows Brody's shock on the beach as the Kintner boy is attacked?

A dolly zoom: the camera tracks in while the lens zooms out, so the beach seems to rush away behind Brody, a trick first used in Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Jaws was the highest-grossing film in history until which 1977 release passed it?

Star Wars overtook Jaws in 1977 after about two years at the top, but Spielberg took the record back in 1983 with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Principal photography was scheduled for 55 days. How many days did it actually run?

Shooting at sea nearly tripled the schedule and the budget, and the crew took to calling the production 'Flaws'.

Which Massachusetts island stood in for Amity in the filming of Jaws?

Martha's Vineyard won out partly because the sea stays shallow far from shore, so the mechanical sharks could work on the seabed out of sight of land.

Peter Benchley, who wrote the novel Jaws, spent his later years campaigning for what?

Shark conservation: Benchley said he could not in good conscience write Jaws today, and he became a full-time ocean conservationist, writing and speaking up for sharks.

Quint's big monologue reveals he survived the wartime sinking of which US Navy ship?

USS Indianapolis: the real cruiser was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in July 1945, and her survivors drifted for days among sharks before a patrol plane happened to spot them.

In Jaws, Quint says his warship had just delivered what?

The Hiroshima bomb: the real cruiser had carried parts of the weapon to Tinian only days before she was sunk, and Quint ends his story with a flat 'Anyway, we delivered the bomb.'

In his monologue, Quint says he will never again put on what?

A life jacket: Quint says the moment he was most frightened was waiting his turn to be picked up by the rescue seaplane.

Jaws author Peter Benchley turns up on screen in the film playing what?

A news reporter on the beach: Benchley, once a Washington Post reporter, filmed the cameo while his own script drafts were being rewritten by others day by day.

What does Hooper pull from the stomach of the shark the Amity fishermen caught?

A Louisiana licence plate turns up with some fish and a tin can but no human remains, so Hooper knows the killer is still at large, and Brody asks whether it ate a car.

Universal began shooting Jaws in May 1974 in the hope of finishing before what?

An actors' strike: the union's contract with the studios ran out at the end of June, but the troubled shoot ran on for months past that deadline anyway.

The mechanical sharks in Jaws were nicknamed after which person in Steven Spielberg's life?

His lawyer: Spielberg's attorney lent his first name to all three props, which broke down so often that the shark is not seen in full until over an hour into the film.

Which song do Quint, Hooper and Brody sing together aboard Quint's boat?

All three sing 'Show Me the Way to Go Home' in the cabin after comparing scars, the last calm moment before the shark rams the hull.

What does Quint do when Brody tries to radio the Coast Guard for help?

Quint smashes the radio with a bat, then burns out the engine racing for the shallows, which leaves the sinking boat with no way to call for help.

Before taking the police chief's job in Amity, where did Martin Brody work as a cop?

New York: Brody tells Hooper he left because of the crime, saying that in Amity one man can make a difference, and then finds the town will not let him close its beaches.

What did the Jaws crew pour into a swimming pool so its water looked like murky sea?

Milk clouded the clear, chlorinated pool so that a reshot scare with a sunken boat would match the murky water filmed at sea months earlier.

How does Quint silence the noisy Amity town meeting in Jaws?

Scrapes a blackboard: Quint drags his fingernails down it, names his price for killing the shark, and is told only that the town will take his offer under advisement.

How much does Quint charge to hunt the shark?

Quint names $10,000 at the town meeting — 'I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten' — and the mayor eventually pays.

After Quint crushes a beer can, what does Hooper crush in reply?

His coffee cup: Hooper drains it and crumples the flimsy disposable cup in one hand, mocking Quint's show of strength.

Which earlier film did Jaws overtake as the highest-grossing movie in North America?

The Godfather had held the North American record since 1972; Jaws took it within three months, helped by opening on hundreds of screens at once.

What is Brody doing when the shark first rears out of the water behind the boat?

Shovelling chum into the sea: Brody is grumbling over the bloody bait when the shark's head rises beside him, and he backs into the cabin to warn Quint.

On the AFI's list of the 100 most thrilling films, Jaws came second behind which movie?

Psycho topped the AFI's thrills list with Jaws second; Spielberg said the broken shark pushed him towards Hitchcock's less-you-see approach.

Who does the shark kill in the estuary while Brody's son watches?

A man in a small boat is killed in the estuary, his severed leg sinking to the bottom, while Michael Brody watches from feet away and goes into shock.

The Jaws 2 tagline began 'Just when you thought it was safe' and ended how?

To go back in the water: trailer maker Andrew Kuehn wrote the line for the 1978 sequel, and it has been borrowed and parodied by other films and adverts ever since.

Which star joined the cast of the 1987 sequel Jaws: The Revenge?

Michael Caine played Hoagie, the pilot who romances Ellen Brody; the shoot kept him abroad, so he missed collecting his first Oscar in person.

Which comedy writer rewrote the Jaws script on set and played newspaper editor Harry Meadows?

Carl Gottlieb was hired for a quick dialogue polish and ended up rewriting most of the script during the shoot, often the night before a scene was filmed.

Local fishermen catch which species, prompting the mayor to declare the beaches safe?

The fishermen land a tiger shark; Hooper doubts its bite radius and, cutting it open that night, finds no human remains, so the real killer is still out there.

What does Hooper pull from the hull of Ben Gardner's half-sunk boat on the night dive?

A large shark tooth: Hooper drops it in shock when a dead fisherman's head floats out of the hole, which is why he has no proof to show the mayor next day.

What does Brody shoot to finally kill the shark?

A scuba tank in its mouth; the explosive finish was Spielberg's change, as the novel's shark simply dies of its harpoon wounds.

Producer David Brown first came across the novel in which magazine, edited by his wife?

A card from Cosmopolitan's book editor summarised the plot and ended with the note 'might make a good movie'.

Dick Richards lost the job of directing Jaws partly for his habit of calling the shark what?

A whale: Dick Richards kept describing the shark as one, which irritated the producers, and the job went instead to the 26-year-old Steven Spielberg.

Before Jaws, Steven Spielberg had just directed which film for producers Zanuck and Brown?

The Sugarland Express was Spielberg's first cinema feature; at the end of a meeting with its producers he spotted their copy of the unpublished shark novel, read it and was hooked.

The shark's death roar reuses a truck-crash sound from which earlier Spielberg film?

Duel's dying-truck roar is reused as the shark sinks; Spielberg saw the two stories as so alike that he feared being typecast as the truck-and-shark director.

Which novel subplot was cut to protect the camaraderie of the men aboard the boat?

Ellen Brody's affair with Hooper was cut; in the novel it sours the hunt, with Brody suspecting his shipmate until the shark kills Hooper in the cage.

Which actor played Quint and, as a playwright himself, rewrote Quint's famous monologue?

Robert Shaw trimmed a far longer draft of the speech, then delivered it on a second attempt after drinking too much to get through the first.

Lorraine Gary, who played Ellen Brody in Jaws, was married to whom?

The studio's president: Sidney Sheinberg ran Universal, and Gary later came out of retirement to play Ellen Brody one last time in Jaws: The Revenge.

Which actor was offered Brody but was interested only in playing Quint?

Robert Duvall preferred Quint to the lead; Charlton Heston asked to play Brody, but Spielberg felt his screen persona was too grand for a small-town police chief.

Which tough-guy star was offered the part of Quint in Jaws but turned it down?

Lee Marvin said no, and second choice Sterling Hayden fell through, so the producers turned to a British actor they had just worked with on The Sting.

What is young Alex Kintner floating on when the shark attacks him in Jaws?

A rubber raft: his mother lets him go back in for ten more minutes, and soon afterwards the torn raft washes up on the beach without him.

Which director recommended Richard Dreyfuss to Spielberg for the role of Hooper?

George Lucas, who had just directed Dreyfuss in American Graffiti, recommended him; Spielberg had initially wanted Jon Voight for Hooper.

Richard Dreyfuss first turned Jaws down, so what changed his mind?

He hated his latest performance: after a screening of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Dreyfuss feared nobody would hire him again, so he rang Spielberg and took the part.

The island was chosen partly because its seabed stays shallower than what for 12 miles out?

The island's sandy seabed stays about 35 feet deep for 12 miles out, so the mechanical sharks could work on their platforms while the boat stayed out of sight of land.

Jaws effects chief Bob Mattey was best known for building what for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

The giant squid: two decades after that Disney monster, Bob Mattey's mechanical sharks corroded and broke down so often at sea that the Jaws shoot ran far over schedule and budget.

How did the crew filming real sharks for Jaws make them look huge?

A short diver in a small cage: a former jockey under five feet tall doubled for Hooper in a scaled-down cage, so the great whites filmed off South Australia looked far bigger.

Why does Hooper survive in Jaws when the novel kills him off?

Real-shark footage showed an empty cage: a great white tore into it with nobody inside, and the shots were too good to waste, so the script let Hooper escape.

Why did Spielberg skip the filming of the final exploding-shark shot?

He feared the crew would dunk him when the last shot was done, so he was already on his way back to Los Angeles when the shark blew up.

The Jaws reshoot of Hooper finding a severed head was filmed in whose swimming pool?

Editor Verna Fields' backyard pool in Encino hosted the reshoot; Spielberg wanted one more big scare after filming had wrapped and paid for it himself.

Which brass instrument carries the melody of the shark theme in the Jaws score?

Tuba: the player asked why the tune sat so high instead of going to a French horn, and the composer said he wanted it to sound a little more threatening.

Steven Spielberg played which instrument, slightly out of tune, on the Jaws town-band recording?

Clarinet: the town band was meant to sound like amateurs, so the composer had the director sit in and play a little off pitch.

The famous Jaws poster image was first painted for what?

A paperback cover: Bantam's artist Roger Kastel painted it after photographing stuffed sharks at a natural history museum, and Universal reused the image for the film.

In Ideal's tie-in The Game of Jaws, what did players have to do?

Hook junk from the shark's mouth: players took turns lifting pieces out with a gaff, and one wrong move made the plastic jaws snap shut.

What US rating did Jaws receive, to the dismay of critic Charles Champlin?

PG: Champlin called the film too gruesome for children; the PG-13 rating arrived only in 1984, after an outcry over the violence in two other PG films.

Which Academy Award nomination did Spielberg greatly resent not receiving?

Best Director: Jaws was up for Best Picture, yet the fifth directing nomination went to Federico Fellini for Amarcord, the one nominee whose film was not.

In 1978 Jaws became the first title sold in North America in which home-video format?

LaserDisc launched with Jaws in Atlanta in December 1978, but costly players kept the format a niche while videotape took over living rooms.

Which 1979 science fiction film was famously pitched to executives as 'Jaws in space'?

Alien: Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett wrote it as Star Beast, then renamed it and sold it to studios on that three-word pitch.

Spielberg called which 1978 film 'the best of the Jaws ripoffs'?

Piranha, written by John Sayles, so impressed Spielberg that he talked Universal out of blocking its release, and he later hired its director to make Gremlins.

The 1976 Brazilian Jaws parody replaced the shark with which staple of Portuguese cooking?

A cod: the spoof is called Bacalhau, the Portuguese word for the fish, and, as in Jaws, an outside expert is called in to identify the killer.

Which 2006 video game casts the player as the shark attacking Amity Island?

Jaws Unleashed lets the player roam an open-world Amity as the great white, eating swimmers and wrecking boats; Ultimate Predator followed in 2011.

In the play The Shark Is Broken, the Jaws actor who played Quint is portrayed by whom?

His son: the actor's son Ian co-wrote the play and plays his father, imagining the three leads stuck on the boat while the mechanical shark is out of action.

Who ended up directing Jaws 2 after original director John D. Hancock was fired?

Jeannot Szwarc, a television director, took over Jaws 2 after John D. Hancock's firing; Joe Alves and Verna Fields had offered to co-direct, but the Directors Guild refused.

Roy Scheider made Jaws 2 to settle his Universal contract after quitting which future Best Picture winner?

The Deer Hunter: Scheider walked out two weeks before filming over creative differences, and Universal agreed to forgive the breach if he returned as Brody.

Jaws 2 opened on June 16, 1978, the same day as which hit musical?

Grease opened the same day; Jaws 2 won the weekend with a record opening, but Grease went on to be the bigger hit of 1978.

In which country was Jaws 2 billed as part two because a plain 2 made the title sound like a swear word?

France: 'Les Dents de la mer 2' would end in 'mer deux', which sounds like 'merde', so French posters called the film the second part instead.

Which Florida marine park is the setting for Jaws 3-D?

SeaWorld in Orlando is the setting: a great white follows a team of water skiers through lagoon gates that are stuck open, trapping it inside the park.

The producers first pitched the second Jaws sequel as a spoof with what title?

Jaws 3, People 0 was the spoof the original producers pitched, with National Lampoon writers hired for the script; Universal pulled the plug, and a straight sequel was made instead.

Jaws 3-D's Razzie nomination for Worst New Star went to whom?

Cindy and Sandy, the dolphins, play the park's friendly pair, who join the battle and come to the heroes' rescue when the shark attacks.

What was the tagline of Jaws: The Revenge?

'This time, it's personal.' sold Jaws: The Revenge in 1987; Back to the Future Part II later riffed on it with a hologram shark ad: 'This time it's REALLY REALLY personal!'

According to Jaws: The Revenge, how did Chief Brody die before the story begins?

A heart attack: Roy Scheider declined to return, so the script killed Brody off-screen.

Filming Jaws: The Revenge stopped its British co-star collecting his Oscar for which film?

Hannah and Her Sisters won him Best Supporting Actor, but the shoot kept him abroad; he later wrote that the film paid for a house: 'Not bad for a flop movie.'

In Jaws: The Revenge, the shark follows the Brody family to which islands?

The Bahamas: after a shark kills her younger son off Amity, Ellen Brody flies south to join her other son, convinced the animal is hunting her family, and it turns up there too.

Hank Searls' novelization of The Revenge blames the shark's vendetta on what?

A voodoo witch-doctor's curse drives the shark in the novelization; Hank Searls said he never claimed the shark was thinking, so he had 'the voodoo guy standing in for him'.

Back to the Future Part II shows Marty attacked by a hologram ad for which sequel?

Jaws 19, 'directed by Max Spielberg', is the hologram that lunges at Marty in 2015 Hill Valley; his verdict is that 'the shark still looks fake'.

Before writing Jaws, its author wrote speeches in the late 1960s for which US president?

Lyndon B. Johnson hired Benchley as a junior speechwriter in 1967; the job ended when Johnson left office in 1969, pushing him into the freelance writing that led to the novel.

Benchley's next novel, filmed in 1977 with Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset, was called what?

The Deep (1977) adapted Benchley's second novel, with Robert Shaw alongside Nolte and Bisset, and finished among the top-grossing US films of 1977.

In the novel Jaws, where is the resort town of Amity located?

On Long Island: the novel puts Amity on the south shore, but producer David Brown found the area too grand for a town a shark could ruin, so the film moved it to an island.

How does Quint die in the novel Jaws?

Dragged under by a harpoon rope: his foot tangles in the line as the dying shark sinks, the same fate as Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick.

In the novel Jaws, why is the mayor desperate to keep the beaches open?

He is in debt to the Mafia, whose money is tied up in Amity property; if values fall he loses everything, a subplot the film dropped.

Susan Backlinie spoofed her Jaws death in Spielberg's 1941 by being lifted out of the sea by what?

A submarine periscope: she goes for another solo swim in the opening of 1941, and a Japanese submarine surfaces right underneath her.

How does Mrs. Kintner confront Chief Brody after her son's death?

Slaps him: Lee Fierro, a local drama teacher, found the slap hard to fake and hit Roy Scheider for real across many takes.

Production designer Joe Alves, who designed the sharks, later directed which sequel?

Joe Alves directed Jaws 3-D (1983), his only feature as director, after serving as second-unit director on Jaws 2 and offering to co-direct it with Verna Fields.

How is Spielberg said to have reacted when the composer of Jaws first played him the shark theme on a piano?

He laughed, taking it for a joke, because he had expected something more melodic. Spielberg later said the film would have been only half as successful without its score.

Disgruntled crew members on the troubled, long-overrunning Jaws shoot gave the film which rhyming nickname?

Flaws was the crew's verdict on a shoot where cameras got soaked, stray sailboats drifted into frame and Quint's boat once began to sink with the actors on board.

A paperback editor warned that the bare one-word title Jaws could be taken for a book about which field?

Dentistry, the editor said, so the plain lettering planned for the jacket was scrapped and an artist was asked to draw a shark's head rising toward a swimmer.

Which fear did Spielberg suggest giving police chief Brody, a city man new to island life in Jaws?

Water frightens Brody, yet the hunt puts him out at sea on a small fishing boat. Spielberg pictured a man leaving an urban jungle to find something more terrifying off a placid island.

Jaws, with its saturation release and TV ad blitz, is regarded as the prototype of which Hollywood phenomenon?

The summer blockbuster reversed studio habit: summer had been a dumping ground for films expected to do poorly, while hoped-for hits were held back for winter.

How does police chief Brody finally kill the shark at the climax of the sequel Jaws 2?

It bites a power cable that Brody, adrift in an inflatable raft, has been tapping with an oar to lure it in. The cable carries electricity to Amity from a small offshore island.

The Jaws boat ride at Universal Studios Florida closed in 2012 to make way for a land themed to what?

Harry Potter took over the site: the ride and its whole Amity village were cleared for the second phase of the Wizarding World. The ride had opened with the park in 1990 and broke down often at first.

Two years after Jaws, Richard Dreyfuss became the youngest Best Actor Oscar winner yet for which comedy?

The Goodbye Girl cast him as a struggling actor and made him the youngest Best Actor winner at 30, beating by a few months the mark Marlon Brando had held since 1955.

Critics have linked the venal, attack-denying mayor in Jaws to the mood after which American political scandal?

Watergate hangs over the mayor, the only villain in the film besides the shark, in critic Peter Biskind's reading. Scholar Stephen Heath also tied the film's meaning to the scandal.

Spielberg said the failing mechanical shark in Jaws made him work less like Ray Harryhausen and more like whom?

Alfred Hitchcock, in other words: suggest the menace and hold the monster back. For much of the hunt the shark is shown only by a fin or by the floating barrels it drags.

Aboard the boat at nightfall in Jaws, Quint and Hooper drunkenly swap stories about their assorted what?

Scars are matched one for one until Brody asks about a mark on Quint's arm, a tattoo he had removed, and the mood on the boat turns as he explains what it once marked.

What is police chief Brody doing at the stern when the shark first rears up behind him in Jaws?

Laying a chum line means ladling bait into the sea to draw the shark to the boat. It works: the shark surfaces behind him, and Quint soon has a first barrel fixed to it.

For much of the sea hunt in Jaws, the unseen shark is tracked by floating barrels of which colour?

Yellow barrels did the shark's acting for it: the mechanical models broke down so often that Spielberg let the bobbing floats, and a lone fin, show where it was.

After a boy is killed at a crowded beach in Jaws, what sets off a frenzy of amateur shark hunters?

A $3,000 bounty fills the harbour with amateur hunters, and when local fishermen haul in a big shark the mayor declares the beaches safe. Hooper doubts it is the right fish.

In Jaws, the coroner comes under pressure to blame the first victim's death on which kind of mishap?

A boating accident suits the mayor, who fears a shark scare will ruin the town's tourist trade. The coroner's first finding had been plain: a shark attack.

In Jaws, Hooper goes underwater planning to inject the shark with which poison from a hypodermic spear?

Strychnine never reaches the shark: it rams him, he drops the spear, and he has to hide on the seabed. In the novel he carries a bang stick instead.

Which star wanted to play police chief Brody in Jaws, only for Spielberg to judge his screen persona too grand?

Charlton Heston seemed too big a presence for the police chief of a modest town. Spielberg wanted fairly anonymous faces, so that audiences would believe it was happening to people like them.

Spielberg feared Roy Scheider would play Brody in Jaws as a tough guy, as in which crime thriller?

The French Connection was the tough-guy mould Spielberg feared. Scheider had chased the part himself after overhearing the director at a party describe a shark jumping onto a boat.

Who was Spielberg's first choice to play Hooper in Jaws, an actor who passed because he was not interested?

Jon Voight said no, and nine days before shooting began the part had not been cast. Jeff Bridges and Kevin Kline were among the others considered.

Murray Hamilton, the mayor in Jaws, played the husband of a famous seductress opposite Dustin Hoffman in which film?

The Graduate cast him as Mr. Robinson, whose wife seduces the young hero. He also played a wealthy, high-stakes billiards player against Paul Newman in The Hustler.

Roy Scheider of Jaws earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination playing a version of Bob Fosse in which film?

All That Jazz had him play a stand-in for its own director and co-writer, Bob Fosse. It was his second Oscar nomination, after a supporting nod for playing a New York City detective.

The actor who played Quint in Jaws earned an Oscar nomination as Henry VIII in which 1966 film?

A Man for All Seasons made him only the second actor nominated for playing Henry VIII, after Charles Laughton. He was a playwright too, and reworked Quint's big monologue himself.

Why did the actor playing Quint keep slipping away to Canada whenever he could during the Jaws shoot?

Tax problems sent him over the border between scenes. On set he drank heavily and nursed a grudge against Richard Dreyfuss, who was collecting rave reviews for an earlier film.

The author of Jaws suggested Robert Redford, Paul Newman and which other star for the film's lead roles?

Steve McQueen and the others were exactly what Spielberg did not want: stars, he said, bring memories with them that can corrupt a story. His superstar was going to be the shark.

The director of Jaws said which screen monster's film shaped him as a boy by making its menace feel real?

Godzilla impressed him as a boy with the masterful way it made you believe it was really happening. A critic was comparing Jaws with the Japanese monster film as early as 1977.

Spielberg's draft of Jaws had Quint howling at which film in a cinema, until star Gregory Peck withheld the rights?

Moby Dick would have shown Quint cackling until the rest of the house walked out. Its Captain Ahab is his clearest ancestor: a seaman consumed by the hunt for one great creature.

Spielberg rejected a studio tank or a sheltered lake and insisted on shooting Jaws in which body of water?

The Atlantic Ocean made Jaws the first major film shot at sea, and it showed: on a 12-hour working day the crew averaged about four hours of actual filming.

Which cinematographer built a sealed submersible camera box to film Jaws at a swimmer's eye level?

Bill Butler also devised a rig that kept the camera steady whatever the tide. Spielberg later wrote to thank him for being the calm before, during and after every storm on the set.

The composer of Jaws gave parts of the score a primal, fun flavour he likened to the music of which films?

Pirate movies came to mind because he saw the sea hunt as an adventure. The score also carries echoes of Debussy's La mer and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

Jaws 2 was briefly the highest-grossing sequel in history until which film arrived the following year?

Rocky II took the record in 1979. Jaws 2 had earned about $78 million at home on its first release, the sixth-biggest total of 1978.

The shark on the famous Jaws poster was painted from a museum specimen of which species, not a great white?

A mako was what the artist photographed at the American Museum of Natural History, where the shark exhibits happened to be closed for cleaning.

The author of Jaws spent summers writing the novel in a converted what, on his in-laws' seaside property?

A turkey coop in Stonington, Connecticut, was his summer office. In the winter months he wrote in a makeshift room above a furnace company.

In which magazine did the author of Jaws write in 2000 that he could not, in good conscience, write it again?

National Geographic carried the confession. By then he was an ardent ocean conservationist, who had come to feel responsible for the fear of sharks his novel stirred up.

Several shark writers trace Jaws partly to a string of deadly 1916 attacks along the shore of which state?

New Jersey saw five people attacked and four killed within twelve days, some of them in a creek. Resort towns fenced off their beaches with steel nets.

A Spielberg biography says he and his producers got the Jaws novel onto California's bestseller list by doing what?

Buying 100 copies each, they posted most of them to opinion-makers. It was the state's most successful book by 7 p.m. on the first day, though sales elsewhere needed no such help.

In the novel Jaws, what stops the shark just as it reaches Brody, afloat on a seat cushion?

It dies of its wounds just as it reaches him, then spirals down out of sight. Spielberg thought film audiences would respond better to a big rousing ending and rewrote it.

In the novel Jaws, Matt Hooper is a young, affluent ichthyologist from which real research institution?

Woods Hole is a real oceanographic institution. In the novel it is the local newspaper editor who brings Hooper in, and Quint dismisses him as a conceited rich kid.

The Jaws plot of an official silenced to protect a resort's income echoes An Enemy of the People, a play by whom?

Henrik Ibsen wrote of a doctor who finds that a spa town's lucrative springs are contaminated and is shunned for saying so. One of the film's writers said he and Spielberg drew the comparison themselves.

The number of cinema tickets Jaws sold in Brazil was first surpassed in 1998 by which film?

Titanic needed until 1998 to outsell Jaws in Brazil, more than two decades after the shark film opened there. Jaws also broke box-office records in Japan, Spain and Mexico.

Jaws became the first film ever to pass which milestone in theatrical rentals in the United States?

$100 million in rentals had never been reached before. The film took a record $7 million on its opening weekend and spent 14 consecutive weeks as America's number-one film.

Before Spielberg, the Jaws producers first considered which veteran director, who had made The Old Man and the Sea?

John Sturges had already filmed one man's battle with a great fish. The job went instead to a director with a single feature to his name, who was soon dropped, and then to Spielberg.

Before filming Jaws, Spielberg tried to switch to which 20th Century Fox film, a move Universal vetoed?

Lucky Lady appealed because he feared being typecast as the truck and shark director. A producer won him back by promising that after this film he could make whatever he wanted.

Which novelty-record maker reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975 by interviewing the Jaws shark?

Dickie Goodman built the record from break-ins: every answer in his mock interview with the shark was a clip from a pop hit of that year.

When Jaws first aired on British television in 1981, only which James Bond film had drawn more viewers?

Live and Let Die held the British record for a feature film on television. In America, the first network showing of Jaws was watched by 57 percent of everyone tuned in.

Which Directors Guild award winner, who had directed Lorraine Gary in a 1973 TV film, made Jaws: The Revenge?

Joseph Sargent had the script written within five weeks and finished during the shoot. He later admitted the premise came out of a little desperation to find something fresh to do with the shark.

Glowing reactions at two rough-cut test screenings of Jaws in which Texas city helped sell cinemas on a wide release?

Dallas came first, with Long Beach two days later. After the previews Spielberg decided to add one more jolt and paid for the reshoot out of his own pocket.

Great White, a Jaws imitation that Universal sued over and got pulled from US cinemas, came from which country?

Italy's Great White lasted about a month in American cinemas before a federal judge ruled it too similar to Jaws. In some countries it had even been marketed as part of the series.

The Shark Is Broken, a play about the feuding Jaws cast, reached the West End after a sell-out 2019 run where?

Edinburgh Fringe crowds sold out a play that strands the three lead actors on a boat for weeks, bored and arguing, while the mechanical shark is out of action.

Who voiced the door-knocking Land Shark in Saturday Night Live's first-season parody of Jaws?

Chevy Chase's shark talked its way indoors by posing as a repairman or a salesman. The sketch aired within months of the film's release, and the shark came back for several more.

Which future star of the Back to the Future trilogy made her movie debut in Jaws 3-D?

Lea Thompson played one of the park's water skiers, two years before the role she is best known for. The film's 3D effect did not transfer to television or home video, where it was renamed Jaws 3.