Steven Spielberg has been making movies that would make you both grip onto a couch and jump from the couch at the same time. He has spread the frights with every movie and the impact that Jaws had created an environment that he did not expect nor did he appreciate. So much so that the director even regrets filming the movie altogether.
What started as an attempt to make a horror movie revolving around sharks and fixing a mechanical shark that could just not work soon turned into a real-life horror as sharks were now being targetted as trophies rather than animals living in the ocean. Not only that, but Spielberg had a difficult time making the movie as he had a fear of sharks as well.
Steven Spielberg Was Really Scared Of Sharks
Steven Spielberg had taken a lot of inspiration from both Alfred Hitchcock and Bruce Springsteen. One thing he learned from Hitchcock was how to master Horror as his own and how to create a creature so frightening while not really having made contact with it at all. Similarly, he got the mechanical shark built, one which for some reason refused to cooperate with a lot of the time.
“It was just good fortune that the shark kept breaking. It was my good luck and I think it’s the audience’s good luck, too, because it’s a scarier movie without seeing so much of the shark.”
The director was unwilling in terms of seeing and observing an actual shark due to his fear of sharks. This fear, to be precise, was not of the sharks themselves but instead to be eaten by them. This was one of the biggest obstacles he faced as while on one hand, he had a phobia of sharks, perhaps galeophobia, on the other hand, he was filming a movie that focused on them.
Steven Spielberg Apologized For The Impact Jaws Had
Jaws as a movie came out with a bang and scared the audience a lot. It became Steven Spielberg’s big hit, however, he will forever regret the events that came to be after the movie was released.
“There’s no such thing as a rogue man-eater shark with a taste for human flesh. In fact, sharks rarely take more than one bite out of people, because we’re so lean and unappetizing to them.”
The film had a big hand in the declining rate of the shark population as the fish were being hunted for trophies massively. Jaws had purely been a fictional movie, the director even clarified that sharks don’t hold grudges nor do they chase after humans. The reduced rate of sharks that the world saw after the movie was released disturbed Spielberg and he has since then been profusely apologizing for ever making such a movie.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
