Before Jaws: The Revenge killed the shark franchise stone-dead, we nearly got a spoof movie from the director of Gremlins, that had a truly bizarre title and premise.
Jaws turns 50 today, so we’re celebrating the birthday of a film that regularly tops best movie lists – and pretty much invented the summer blockbuster – by recounting the story of a sequel that never was.
Jaws was a phenomenon when it hit screen on June 20, 1975, so-much-so that by the end of the year, it was the most successful film in history.
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Jaws 2 followed in 1978, and was also a sizeable hit, meaning talk soon turned to Jaws 3. Which is where the story gets strange.
‘Jaws 3, People 0’ was nearly a movie
Universal Pictures
‘Jaws 3, People 0’ – aka ‘Jaws 3 People Nothing’ – was the brainchild of National Lampoon publisher Matty Simmons, and was planned as a spoof of the original film.
Simmons had an office near Jaws producers Richard Zanuck and David Brooks, who told Matty that they wanted to make a movie with him.
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“So out of the blue I just start kidding around,” Simmons explains in the Shudder documentary Sharksploitation. “I just said, ‘Jaws 3, People Nothing.’ I said, [Jaws author] ‘Peter Benchley walks out of his house in a bathing suit, jumps into his pool, and disappears. And the next thing we see a fin floating around in the pool.’ He said, ‘I love it, I love it, I’ll call you tomorrow. We’re going to make this movie.’”
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Simmons recruited screenwriters John Hughes and Tod Carroll to flesh out the story, which featured Steven Spielberg, a Quint-like character called Pierre Cockatoo, an homage to the bonfire beach party from the original – where the teens are replaced by Hollywood executives – and a scene in which a bunch of bizarre items are pulled from a shark’s stomach, including some weed.
Gremlins helmer Joe Dante was going to direct
Warner Bros.Joe Dante directing Gremlins.
In 1978, Joe Dante directed Piranha, a comedy-horror that either paid homage to or ripped off Jaws, depending on who you ask.
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“Universal was very concerned and annoyed that [producer] Roger [Corman] was putting out his rip-off of Jaws the same year that Jaws 2 was coming out and so they apparently threatened an injunction,” says Dante in the same doc.
“I discovered much later that Spielberg had stepped in and said, ‘No, you don’t get it, this is a spoof, this isn’t really a rip-off.’ Although it is a rip-off. And we basically got away with it, I guess is the phrase. And because of that, I was offered Jaws 3, People 0.”
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Dante was interested, but reveals that disagreements about approach, tone, and potential audience ultimately scuppered the project.
Universal Pictures
“The National Lampoon people wanted to make an R-rated comedy, like Animal House,” says Dante. “And the more conservative Zanuck and Brown team wanted to make a PG and have it be a wide-release family picture.”
Which spelled the end, as Dante explains: “You can’t go into a movie with two entities as powerful as National Lampoon was at that time and Zanuck and Brown and have them fighting constantly through the entire movie. It’s just a bad idea, and I think they just pulled the plug.”
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So Jaws 3, People 0 remains unproduced, and we got Jaws 3D instead, a true disaster movie that had people laughing at it rather than with it.
The Sharksploitation doc is currently streaming on Shudder, while for more similarly themed action, here’s our review of Dangerous Animals, plus how it was made as a response to Jaws. Plus you can check out our list of the best shark movies ever.