![]() Despite only killing 11 people worldwide in 2021 in isolated incidents, 96 percent of shark films still play into that fear and portray the fish as imminently threatening mass murderers. The fear certainly presents itself as more fictionalized than reality-based at this point. ![]() Even as their numbers drop, an estimated 100 million sharks are killed per year and roughly 37 percent of sharks and rays are threatened with extinction largely from overfishing and shark finning. A 2021 study found that the population of sharks and rays decreased by over 71 percent between 19 worldwide. The destruction has only continued in the nearly two decades since Benchley died in 2006. “I really, truly regret that.” The film has been blamed for leading to trophy hunting for sharks through the United States, due to its misrepresentation of great whites. “I still fear… that sharks are somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy sword fishermen that happened after 1975,” said Spielberg. The 76 year-old director said he feels responsible for the shark’s troubles in the almost 50 years since the film’s release. This confusion continued when Benchley first wrote the novel.Īlmost three decades later in a 2022 interview with BBC Radio, Speilberg joined his former collaborator in expressing the regret for the terrible reputation sharks are facing due to the film. The tales of what locals dubbed the Matawan Maneater were products of the early 20th century, when ocean swimming was new and sharks were still misunderstood by the general public and scientists alike. His novel and the subsequent film were both loosely inspired by a series of shark encounters along the Jersey Shore in July 1916. It drew from Benchley’s life-long fascination with the sea, that he took into his shark conservation work. Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel of the same name has sold over 20 million copies. Since then, both the author of the original novel and Spielberg have expressed some remorse over their mega-hit creation. But along with some of the most quotable lines in movie history, it induced a societal fear of sharks as mindless monsters that hunt people with virtually indiscriminate taste and threaten seaside communities. It became the first film to gross over $100 million at the box office and put a young filmmaker named Steven Speilberg on the map. With those two ominous notes, a 25-foot long mechanical great white shark named Bruce, and the menacing tagline “you’ll never go in the water again,” Jaws practically invented the summer blockbuster. In the series I Made a Big Mistake, PopSci explores mishaps and misunderstandings, in all their shame and glory. American actor Richard Dreyfuss (left) (as marine biologist Hooper) and British author and actor Robert Shaw (as shark fisherman Quint) look off the stern of Quint's fishing boat the 'Orca' at the terrifying approach of the mechanical giant shark dubbed 'Bruce' in a scene from the film 'Jaws' directed by Steven Spielberg, 1975.
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