“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him.”
When Richard Dreyfuss was first offered the role of Hooper he turned it down. Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms and Jon Voight were being considered, but then Dreyfuss saw the initial screening of his first film, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) and quickly asked for the part back. Before casting Robert Shaw as Quint, director Steven Spielberg offered the role to Lee Marvin – but Marvin said he’d rather go fishing. Then Spielberg offered the part to Sterling Hayden, but he passed because he was in trouble with the IRS and his income was being garnished. The original idea for introducing Quint was to have him in the local movie theater watching Moby Dick (1956) starring Gregory Peck. Quint was to be sitting in the back laughing so loudly at the absurd special effects of the whale that he drives the audience out of the theater – left all alone. The only thing that stopped Spielberg from doing that scene was Gregory Peck, who held the rights to Moby Dick and turned him down because he didn’t like his own per formance. Quint’s tale of the USS Indianapolis was conceived by playwright Howard Sackler, lengthened by screenwriter John Milius and rewritten by Robert Shaw. The line, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” was ad libbed by Roy Scheider as Chief Brody. Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Robert Duvall and Charlton Heston had all been considered for Brody. Spielberg named the shark ‘Bruce’ after his lawyer. Jaws was the first movie to reach $100 million, the highest grossing of all-time until Star Wars (1977).
