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One fish, two films.<\/p>\n
The massive 1975 hit Jaws will get a pair of documentaries to mark the 50th anniversary of the Steven Spielberg blockbuster. One of them, Jaws: Making a Splash in Hollywood, tossed chum in the water at Sunny Side of the Doc last week \u2013 looking for a bite from potential buyers at the documentary marketplace event in France.<\/p>\n
News of that film, from distributor Newen Connect and directed by French filmmakers Olivier Bonnard and Antoine Coursat, comes just days after Deadline\u2019s exclusive report that National Geographic has greenlighted another documentary about the movie, under the working title Jaws @ 50.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would strongly believe there is room for two different documentaries with a different angle,\u201d Persyn tells Deadline. \u201cWe already know that now, being at Sunny Side where we launched the project to look for international partners, there\u2019s room and an appetite from our buyers around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
NatGeo\u2019s doc is being produced by Spielberg\u2019s Amblin Documentaries and Nedland Media. The \u201crival\u201d shark tale \u2014 a Capa production for Arte France \u2014 will feature vintage interviews with Spielberg and actor Richard Dreyfuss, who played oceanographer Matt Hooper.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could not interview Steven Spielberg because he was doing his own documentary, but we have wonderful archives,\u201d says producer Maud Gangler. \u201cSo we have him in another way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jaws: Making a Splash in Hollywood will feature fresh interviews with Wendy Benchley, marine conservationist and widow of Jaws author Peter Benchley; Jaws screenplay co-writer and actor Carl Gottlieb; actress Lorraine Gary, who played Ellen Brody; and Ian Shaw, son of Robert Shaw, aka old-salt sharkhunter Quint. Ian Shaw wrote the Broadway play The Shark Is Broken about the relationship of his dad, Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider \u2014 who played Chief Brody \u2014 on set.<\/p>\n
Directors Bonnard and Coursat also interviewed Joe Alves, production designer on Jaws who also directed the 1983 second sequel Jaws 3-D.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s basically Mr. Shark,\u201d Bonnard says of Alves. \u201cEverything about the shark malfunctioning and everything, he was in charge of that. So he has a very interesting point of view on the whole shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n
They also spoke with writer Matthew Robbins, who contributed to the Jaws screenplay. He wrote Spielberg\u2019s first big-screen film, The Sugarland Express (1974) and contributed to the screenplay of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the Spielberg films that came before and after Jaws.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Robbins] was part of that generation, of the new Hollywood,\u201d Bonnard notes, \u201cand he was really great at sharing with us what it felt like to be part of that group at that time, at that place in California. They really wanted to change everything, and they had, let\u2019s say, different ways to go about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The thrust of Jaws: Making a Splash in Hollywood \u2013 what it sinks its teeth into \u2013 is the way Jaws dramatically changed Hollywood, spurring the studios to focus virtually their entire attention and business model on creating gigantic hits.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a before and an after Jaws,\u201d Bonnard says. \u201cVery unknowingly, but Spielberg basically made the very first blockbuster. \u2026 It was a very realistic movie shot entirely on location with actors who were not huge stars at the time. And yet it\u2019s the template for the big Hollywood blockbusters that Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark and everything are going to build upon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The directors suggest Hollywood drew the wrong conclusions from Jaws\u2019 success.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis movie, which is like a happy accident, a series of happy accidents, Hollywood basically tries to make it into a formula. And there\u2019s no encapsulating that magic again,\u201d Coursat maintains. Adds Bonnard, \u201cVery, very often I think Hollywood tended to forget that Jaws also had some very, very well-drawn characters and the first half of the movie is setting up those characters, the dynamics between them, which ultimately pays off so well in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hollywood\u2019s pursuit of the tentpole, to the exclusion of just about everything else, has given us the Marvel and DC \u201cuniverses\u201d among other decidedly mixed cinematic accomplishments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is kind of like the side effects of that revolution,\u201d comments Bonnard. \u201cFunny enough, Spielberg himself, I think, and Lucas, for example, are pretty critical of those side effects \u2013 again, unknowingly, that they created a monster basically that we\u2019re seeing right now the latest stage of that monster, which is probably the superhero movies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laurent Bouzereau is directing National Geographic\u2019s Jaws @ 50 (wt). His credits include Faye \u2014 the soon-to-be-released film about Faye Dunaway \u2014 an upcoming film on Jaws composer John Williams and Timeless Heroes: Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford.<\/p>\n
Bonnard says magnanimously of the Bouzereau film: \u201cIt is going to be very well done. I feel it probably will be another \u2018making of\u2019 with fresh material. But we are not doing a making-of. It\u2019s really not so much about the \u2018how\u2019 but about the \u2018why.\u2019 About Jaws 50 years down the road. Very few movies are that enduring. Back to the Future may be another one. Jaws is the new Wizard of Oz, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n
Its appeal has extended well beyond the shores of (fictional) Amity Island, crashing ashore around the world. \u201cIt\u2019s as huge in Europe as in America,\u201d says producer Maud Gangler.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a cult movie that has marked our collective pop culture,\u201d adds Newen Connect\u2019s Persyn. \u201cAnd this is why [the documentary] will be a success on the international market.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gangler says what Jaws: Making a Splash in Hollywood will offer is a different perspective on the classic. \u201cWe have insiders, so we\u2019re quite proud to have Carl Gottlieb, Lorraine Gary \u2014 that\u2019s cool for us,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a point of view of two French directors. They have a lot of experience in cinema, both of them. So it\u2019s not le regard of Steven Spielberg, but the regard is already interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notes Bonnard: \u201cWe are looking at why Jaws was such a phenomenon at the time and to this day, it\u2019s pretty incredible. It\u2019s very, very few select films that have that kind of a legacy, such an enduring echo.\u201d<\/p>\n
View this article at Deadline<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Blood In The Water: Dueling \u2018Jaws\u2019 Docs Circle Distribution Ahead Of Blockbuster\u2019s 50th Anniversary: One fish, two films. The massive 1975 hit Jaws will get a pair of documentaries to mark the 50th anniversary of the Steven Spielberg blockbuster. One of them, Jaws: Making a Splash in Hollywood, tossed chum in the water at Sunny
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