How Big Was Jaws Supposed To Be In The Movie
Okay, picture this: you're at the beach, the sun is shining, the waves are lapping, and you're just blissfully enjoying yourself. Then, out of nowhere, this massive, terrifying shadow emerges from the deep. You've just seen it – the star of the show, the reason so many of us still eye the water with a healthy dose of suspicion: Jaws! But here's a fun little secret, a behind-the-scenes tidbit that’ll make you chuckle and maybe even feel a tiny bit sorry for poor ol' Bruce.
When director Steven Spielberg and his team were cooking up this classic, they had this grand vision. A colossal, man-eating shark, a creature of unimaginable size that would make even the bravest swimmers think twice about that extra dip. We’re talking about a beast that would make a great white look like a goldfish! Imagine a shark so big, its dorsal fin alone would cast a shadow larger than a school bus. A shark whose jaws could swallow a small fishing boat whole, like a hungry toddler with a cracker. They were aiming for something truly legendary, a monster from the murky depths that would etch itself into our nightmares forever.
The original idea for Jaws’s size was, well, let's just say ambitious. They were imagining a shark that was practically a submarine, a leviathan of the ocean. We're talking lengths that would stretch your imagination further than a yoga instructor on a hot day. Think longer than a city bus! Longer than a bowling alley! They wanted it to be so incredibly, impossibly huge that it would be less of a predator and more of a force of nature, an unstoppable, oceanic bulldozer.
But, as is often the case in the magical, sometimes maddening world of filmmaking, things don't always go according to plan. Especially when you're trying to wrestle a giant, mechanical shark into submission. Now, the shark itself, the star of the show, affectionately nicknamed “Bruce” by the crew (a rather ironic and endearing choice, wouldn't you agree?), was a marvel of its time. It was a state-of-the-art animatronic, a colossal puppet designed to bring terror to the silver screen. And let me tell you, it was big. It was supposed to be the biggest shark prop ever built for a movie, a technological wonder!
However, creating a shark of that magnitude, a shark that was meant to be, say, 25 feet long, proved to be a monumental undertaking. We’re talking about a prop that weighed as much as a couple of elephants, a beast that was incredibly complex and, shall we say, a little bit… temperamental. The filmmakers really wanted that immense, terrifying presence. They wanted the audience to feel the sheer power and scale of the creature. They envisioned close-ups of those rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth, so big you could lose a hand in them just looking at them. They imagined the entire shark looming, a dark, silent silhouette that would send shivers down your spine.
“We wanted him to be huge, like, impossibly huge!”
And in their minds, that’s exactly what they were getting. The script called for a shark of epic proportions, a creature that would make the Megalodon look like a nibbler. They were dreaming of a shark that would necessitate the invention of a whole new category of boat – not for fishing, but for fleeing. Imagine a shark so large, its guttural growls could register on the Richter scale. That was the dream, the aspiration. They were aiming for a shark that would make Godzilla feel like a chihuahua.
But then came reality, in all its glorious, messy, and often hilarious forms. Building and operating a 25-foot mechanical shark is no small feat. It’s like trying to teach a rhinoceros to tap-dance in a bathtub. The underwater scenes, where the shark was supposed to be in its full, terrifying glory, were proving to be incredibly challenging. Bruce, bless his mechanical heart, had a tendency to malfunction. He was a diva of the deep, prone to sinking when he shouldn’t, or floating when he should be lurking. He’d seize up, his fins would go limp, and sometimes, he’d just… well, he wouldn’t cooperate.
This meant that those spectacular, epic shots of the fully realized, monstrous shark were surprisingly difficult to capture. So, what did the brilliant Steven Spielberg do? He got creative! He’s a master of suggestion, you see. He realized that sometimes, what you don't see is even scarier than what you do. He used clever camera angles, the iconic "Jaws" theme music (that dun-dun, dun-dun that still makes our hearts race!), and fleeting glimpses of the shark's fin to build suspense. He showed us enough to make our imaginations run wild, filling in the terrifying blanks ourselves.
So, while the original intention was to show a shark that was, frankly, monstrously, stupendously, unbelievably big – bigger than any real shark could ever be, a legend in its own right – the film ended up being a triumph of suggestion and masterful storytelling. The shark we see on screen might not have always been the full 25 feet of terror they initially envisioned, but the idea of that size, the terror it represented, was absolutely there. And honestly? It worked! It scared us to death, and we loved every terrifying second of it. So, the next time you watch Jaws, remember Bruce, the temperamental prop with a heart of gold (and a lot of wires), and appreciate the genius that turned a slightly rebellious shark into a cinematic icon!