Jaws 2 is a 1978 American thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and written by Howard Sackler and Carl Gottlieb. It is the sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975), and the second installment in the Jaws franchise. The film stars Roy Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody, with Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton and Jeffrey Kramer reprising their respective roles as Martin's wife Ellen Brody, mayor Larry Vaughn and Deputy Hendricks. It also stars Joseph Mascolo, Collin Wilcox, Ann Dusenberry, Mark Gruner, Susan French, Barry Coe, Donna Wilkes, Gary Springer, and Keith Gordon in his first feature film role. The plot concerns Police Chief Martin Brody suspecting another great white shark is terrorizing the fictional seaside resort community of Amity Island, following a series of incidents and disappearances, and his suspicions are eventually proven true.
Like the production of the original film, the production of Jaws 2 was troubled. The first director for the film, John D. Hancock, proved to be unsuitable for directing an action film and was replaced by Szwarc.The Making of Jaws 2, Jaws 2 DVD, Written, directed and produced by Laurent Bouzereau Scheider agreed to reprise his role only to settle a contractual issue with Universal Pictures, was unhappy during production and had several heated exchanges with Szwarc.
The film was released on June 16, 1978, to mixed reviews. While the performances of Scheider, Gary and Hamilton, the special effects, and John Williams' musical score were praised, it received criticism for essentially duplicating the formula of the first film. However, in retrospect, the film is generally regarded as the best of the three Jaws sequels. It was briefly the highest-grossing sequel in history until Rocky II was released in 1979. The film's tagline, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..." has become one of the most famous in film history and has been parodied and homaged several times. It was followed by Jaws 3-D in 1983.
Plot
Four years after the killing of the great white shark, another great white shark kills two scuba divers photographing the wreckage of the Orca. Their camera, which took pictures during the attack, is later recovered by Deputy Jeff Hendricks. The next day the shark kills a water skier and the pilot of the boat, who uses a flare gun in self-defense; however, the boat explodes, killing her and severely burning the shark's face.
An orca carcass is found on the beach. Police Chief Martin Brody believes that a shark is responsible. He then finds floating debris from the destroyed speedboat and the driver's burnt remains. Brody attempts to contact oceanographer Matt Hooper for help, but he is away on a research expedition in Antarctica. When Brody raises his concerns, Mayor Larry Vaughn urges him not to press the issue, concerned about Brody's mental state and worried about jeopardizing the island's tourism and new development plans. Concerned for his family's safety, Brody forbids his 17-year-old son Mike from going out on the water.
The following day, Brody watches the beach from an observation tower and causes a panic after mistaking a school of bluefish for a shark and shooting at it. His fears are confirmed, however, when photos from the diver's camera are processed, and one of them shows a closeup of the shark's face. When he presents the photo evidence to the Amity Town Council, developer Len Peterson dismisses his concerns, and the council votes to remove Brody as police chief.
The next morning, Mike defies his father's orders by going sailing with his friends. He reluctantly brings his 9-year-old brother Sean, who catches him trying to sneak out, to keep him from tattling on him to their parents. Marge, another teen, takes Sean with her, and they head out on six boats, going past a team of divers led by instructor Tom Andrews. Shortly after submerging, Andrews encounters the shark in a kelp forest. Panicking, he rushes to the surface, causing a bends attack and an embolism. Later, the shark hits the boat of teenage couple Eddie Marchand and Tina Wilcox, who separate themselves from the main group, and the shark kills Eddie.
Brody and his wife Ellen witness Tom's evacuation by ambulance and hear that the other divers suspect that something scared him. Hendricks, who has taken over as Brody's replacement, tells them that Mike went sailing with his friends, so Brody and Ellen commandeer the police boat, aided by Hendricks, to rescue them. They come across Tina's boat, where she tearfully confirms the shark's presence. Brody hails a passing boat to take Hendricks, Ellen, and Tina back to shore while he continues searching for the other kids. Back on the mainland, Ellen berates Peterson for having Brody fired and for ignoring the shark threat.
Meanwhile, the shark attacks the group's boats, causing most of them to capsize or crash. Mike is knocked unconscious and falls in the water. The only pair whose boat is still seaworthy retrieve Mike and leave the others to take him ashore; Sean and the others remain adrift upon the wreckage. A Harbor Patrol helicopter that Brody contacted earlier arrives to tow them to Cable Junction, a small rocky island nearby which houses an electrical relay station that supplies power to Amity. However, the shark surfaces and latches onto the chopper's pontoons, capsizing it and drowning the pilot. The shark knocks Sean into the water, and Marge is eaten while saving him.
Brody finds Mike, who informs him of the situation before Brody sends him to safety. Brody finds the others at Cable Junction. The cheering and jumping that greet him attracts the shark, which attacks, causing Brody to crash the police boat on the rocks. Using an inflatable raft, he taps an underwater power cable with an oar to lure the shark toward him. The shark bites the cable and is electrocuted. Brody and the other survivors gather on Cable Junction to await rescue.
Cast
Production
Development and writing Universal wanted a sequel to Jaws early into the success of the original film. Producers David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck realized that someone else would produce the film if they did not, and preferred to be in charge of the project themselves.
In October 1975, Steven Spielberg told the San Francisco Film Festival that "making a sequel to anything is just a cheap carny trick" and that he did not even respond to the producers when they asked him to direct Jaws 2. He claimed that the planned plot was to involve the sons of Quint (Robert Shaw) and Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) hunting a new shark. Brown said that Spielberg did not want to direct the sequel because he felt that he had done the "definitive shark movie". The director later added that his decision was influenced by the problems the Jaws production faced – "I would have done the sequel if I hadn't had such a horrible time at sea on the first film."
Despite Spielberg's rejection, the studio went ahead with plans to make the sequel, leading to an arduous 18-month pre-production process. Howard Sackler, who had contributed to the first film's script but chose not to be credited, was charged with writing the first draft. He originally proposed a prequel based on the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, the story relayed by Quint in the first film. Although Universal president Sidney Sheinberg thought Sackler's treatment for the film was intriguing, he rejected the idea. On Sackler's recommendation, theatre and film director John D. Hancock was chosen to helm the picture.
Hancock began filming in June 1977. However, after nearly a month of filming, Universal and MCA executives disliked the dark, subtle tone that the film was taking and wanted a more lighthearted and action-oriented story. Additionally, Hancock ran into trouble with Sheinberg, who suggested to Hancock and Tristan that his (Sheinberg's) wife, actress Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brody), "should go out on a boat and help to rescue the kids." When told of the idea, Zanuck replied, "Over my dead body." The next draft of the film's screenplay was turned in with Gary not going out to sea. Hancock says that this, and his later firing of another actress who turned out to be a Universal executive's girlfriend, contributed to his own dismissal from the film.
Hancock began to feel the pressure of directing his first epic adventure film "with only three film credits, and all small-scale dramas". The producers were unhappy with his material, and on a Saturday evening in June 1977, after a meeting with the producers and Universal executives, the director was fired. He and his wife Dorothy Tristan left for Rome and production was shut down for a few weeks. The couple had been involved in the film for eighteen months. Hancock blamed his departure on the mechanical shark, telling a newspaper that it still could not swim or bite after a year and a half: "You get a couple of shots, and [the shark] breaks." Echoing the first film's production, Carl Gottlieb was enlisted to further revise the script, adding humor and reducing some of the violence. Gottlieb wrote on location at Fort Walton Beach, Florida. It cost the producers more money to hire Gottlieb to do the rewrite than it would have if they had hired him in the first place.
At this point, Spielberg considered returning to direct the sequel. Over the Bicentennial weekend in 1976, Spielberg had hammered out a screenplay based on Quint's Indianapolis speech. Because of his contract for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, however, Spielberg would not be able to work on the film for a further year and the producers could not wait for him to be free. Production designer Joe Alves (who would direct Jaws 3-D) and Verna Fields (who had been promoted to vice-president at Universal after her acclaimed editing on the first film) proposed that they co-direct it. The request was declined by the Directors Guild of America, partly because they would not allow a DGA member to be replaced by someone who was not one of its members, and partly because they, in the wake of events on the set of The Outlaw Josey Wales, had instituted a ban on any cast or crew members taking over as director during a film's production. The reins were eventually handed to Jeannot Szwarc, best known for the film Bug and whom Alves knew from working on the TV series Night Gallery. Szwarc recommenced production by filming the complicated water skiing scene, giving Gottlieb some time to complete the script. He reinstated the character of Deputy Jeff Hendricks, played by Jeffrey Kramer, who had been missing from the earlier script. Many of the teenagers were sacked, with the remaining roles developed.Jaws 2: A Portrait by Actor Keith Gordon, Jaws 2 DVD, Written, directed and produced by Laurent Bouzereau