50-year anniversary of the movie that traumatized Steven Spielberg: “My hands would shake”

Jaws may be one of the most iconic box-office smashes in movie history, but the film’s production process proved a deeply troubling experience for Steven Spielberg, the picture’s then-fledgling director.

The movie was released 50 years ago today, June 20, 1975 and has impacted several generations of movie-goers.

How much did Jaws take at the box office?

A film in which an enormous killer shark terrorizes beachgoers at a New England summer resort town, Jaws has racked up nearly $480 million worldwide since its initial release in June 1975, per Box Office Mojo.

Such takings represent a 40-fold return on its reported $12 million budget. According to Screen Rant, it is the second-highest-grossing film made in the 1970s, behind only Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope.

In the wake of his success with Jaws early in his career, Spielberg has gone on to win two Best Director Oscars - for 1993’s Schindler’s List and 1998’s Saving Private Ryan - and has established himself as the top-grossing film director of all time.

As things stand, the 78-year-old’s career box-office earnings are estimated at nearly $11 billion.

And, together with Schindler’s List, Jaws is one of no fewer than five Spielberg-directed pictures that feature on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest movies of all time.

However, Spielberg says shooting the film left him dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

What went wrong during Jaws filming?

As explained by Collider film expert Lloyd Farley, the production of Jaws was beset by a plethora of issues.

These included the frequent malfunctions suffered by the mechanical shark built for the film, in addition to the challenges of shooting Jaws in the actual sea, rather than a large tank on a set.

“Bad weather, sailboats that drifted into frame, and soaking wet cameras were cause for many delays,” says Farley, who notes that the movie ended up taking 159 days to shoot - more than three times longer than expected.

What’s more, Farley points out, Spielberg had to manage two co-stars, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss, who hated each other.

“I would work through my own trauma”

In 2016, Spielberg revealed that in the period immediately after he directed Jaws, he would revisit Orca - the boat used in the film - in an attempt to process the harrowing experience.

“I used to come out for a couple of years after I made the movie to get over my PTSD,” Spieldberg told an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I would work through my own trauma, because it was traumatic.

“I would just sit in that boat alone for hours, just working through, and I would shake. My hands would shake.”

Spielberg sits out Jaws sequels

Although three films were later added to the Jaws franchise - 1978’s Jaws 2, 1983’s Jaws 3-D and 1987’s Jaws: The Revenge - Spielberg did not participate in any of the follow-up projects.

None of the subsequent Jaws films was able to replicate the original’s runaway box-office success: Jaws 2 managed $187 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo, before the following two movies both failed to reach nine figures.

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