Media & entertainment
How a broken mechanical shark forced Jaws into suspense and invented the summer blockbuster
11 min
The shark barely worked, so Spielberg had to imply the terror instead of showing it — and reshaped how Hollywood makes and markets movies.
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Show notes
Salt water caused the animatronic shark teeth to fold back like soft putty during filming.
Mechanical failures forced Spielberg to use yellow barrels and a two-note score as shark proxies.
Universal spent seven hundred thousand dollars on television ads to create national urgency for the premiere.
The film transformed summer from a cinema dead zone into the primary season for blockbusters.
George Lucas used the success of Jaws to secure his own merchandising rights for Star Wars.
Jaws was the first film to earn over one hundred million dollars at the box office.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Nightmare at Martha's Vineyard2 min
- 3The Hitchcockian Pivot3 min
- 4Saturation Booking and the Birth of the Blockbuster3 min
- 5The Legacy of Jawsmania2 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Designer Who Made the Shark in 'Jaws' Shares Secrets from the Set (Exclusive)
- How 'Jaws' Invented the First Summer Blockbuster | HISTORY
- Inside "Jaws": Making the film classic - CBS News
- New Details Behind How 'Jaws' Nearly Flopped at the Box Office (Exclusive)
- ‘Jaws’ 50th Anniversary: How a Disastrous Shoot Invented the Summer Blockbuster
- How Steven Spielberg's JAWS Survived a Nightmare Shoot to Redefine Hollywood Forever — GeekTyrant
- Jaws: How A Malfunctioning Shark Created A Classic Horror Movie ...
- Jaws at 50: How Spielberg's killer shark accidentally ate Hollywood
- YouTube Deep Dive: Jaws (1975) - It Was A Sh*t Show | Acast
- Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - The Shark That Ate Hollywood: Jaws at 50 Transcript and Discussion
- Steven Spielberg Borrowed Alfred Hitchcock’s Greatest Trick to Save ‘Jaws’
- 'Jaws' 50th Anniversary: How Spielberg Created the Summer Blockbuster
- Jaws at 50: the first summer blockbuster is still a film that bites – even when the shark didn’t work
- Jaws attacked 50 years ago, changing how we look at movies — and sharks | CBC News
- Inside the problem-plagued making of ‘Jaws’ 50 years later: A drunk actor, broken sharks and millions over budget
- How They Made the Shark in Jaws, Explained
- The Hidden Hand: Verna Fields, The Editor Who Saved Jaws from Drowning
- Still Hungry: 50 Years of 'Jaws' and the Birth of the Blockbuster - Hollywood Insider
- How Martha’s Vineyard became the main character in Jaws
- On Location with Jaws
- A shark scientist reflects on Jaws at 50 - Ars Technica
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