Jaws 2 (Jeannot Szwarc, 1978)
The film is the sequel to “Jaws” (1975) by Steven Spielberg, based on the novel of the same name by Peter Benchley.
Let’s remember the story and return to the fictional coastal town of Amity Island, on the east coast of the United States.
Plot
“Jaws 2” begins two years after the events of the first film. The town of Amity is recovering from the attack of the white shark and preparing for the summer tourist season. While the town is buzzing with excitement for the imminent opening of a new hotel, two scuba divers are attacked by an unknown shark.
Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is called to the scene when the divers are reported missing. Brody begins to suspect that another shark is hunting in the waters of Amity, but his concerns are ignored by Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) and the town council, who do not want to alarm the tourists.
Meanwhile, Brody’s teenage son, Mike (Mark Gruner), disregards his father’s orders to stay out of the water and heads to sea with a group of friends on small sailboats. Brody, after discovering a whale carcass with clear signs of a shark attack, alerts the town council but is fired for causing a false alarm.
Nevertheless, Brody decides to take matters into his own hands and embarks on a raft to save his son and his friends, who have been attacked by the shark and are adrift in open water.
The film culminates in a showdown between Brody and the shark, where the former uses an electrical cable to finally kill the shark, thus saving the remaining boys.
Considerations
“Jaws 2” is known to be a less appreciated sequel to the original film, failing to replicate the critical or box office success. However, the film had a significant impact on popular culture, leading to a series of sequels and spin-offs, and contributing to the popular perception of sharks as terrifying threats.
In terms of casting, the film sees the return of some members of the previous cast including Roy Scheider as Chief Martin Brody, Lorraine Gary as his wife Ellen, Murray Hamilton as Mayor Larry Vaughn, and Jeffrey Kramer as Deputy Chief.
Despite various production problems, the film managed to become a commercial success and although it did not replicate the critical or box office success of the first film, it grossed over $200 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing sequel in history at that time and remained in the top 25 highest-grossing films at the box office for over two decades.
Curiosities
The problems with the choice of director:
Steven Spielberg and Richard Dreyfuss were supposed to return for this sequel, but then the production of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) kept them busy longer than expected and they had to give up. The production, therefore, faced many difficulties. The director chosen initially, John D. Hancock, proved to be unsuitable to direct an adventurous film and was replaced by Szwarc. This caused delays and internal discussions.
The shark models:
The shark models are those from the first film, but the valves were ruined, as they were left outside, so three more sharks were built. The first was the “platform shark” often called the “lustful shark”, and the production designer Joe Alves and the mechanical effects designer Bob Mattey, in this case, ended up fixing only the electrical part of the shark from the previous film.
The disputes between Roy Scheider and director Szwarc:
Roy Scheider did not want to reprise the role of Martin Brody. The actor had recently also left the role of Michael in “The Deer Hunter”, after two weeks of production due to creative differences. Universal, therefore, decided to forgive him if he appeared in “Jaws 2”. The atmosphere, however, remained tense on set, as Scheider absolutely did not get along with director Szwarc, with whom he often argued.
The drifting Cable Junction:
