Jaws 3-D


Jaws 3-D is a 1983 American horror film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Simon MacCorkindale and Louis Gossett Jr. As the second sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws it was the third installment in the Jaws franchise. The film follows the Brody children from the previous films to SeaWorld, a Florida marine park with underwater tunnels and lagoons. As the park prepares for opening, a young great white shark infiltrates the park from the sea, seemingly attacking and killing the park's employees. Once the shark is captured, it becomes apparent that a second, much larger shark also entered the park and was the real culprit.
The film made use of 3D during the revived interest in the technology in the 1980s, amongst other horror films such as Friday the 13th Part III and Amityville 3-D. Cinema audiences could wear disposable cardboard polarized 3D glasses to create the illusion that elements penetrate the screen. Several shots and sequences were designed to use the effect, such as the shark's destruction. Since 3D was ineffective in home viewing until the advent of 3D televisions in the late 2000s, the alternative title Jaws III is used for television broadcasts and home media.
To a lesser degree than its predecessors, Jaws 3-D was still commercially successful despite overwhelmingly negative reviews. It was followed by Jaws: The Revenge in 1987, which retroactively ignores this film.

Plot

Michael "Mike" Brody, son of police chief Martin Brody of Amity Island, is working as chief engineer at SeaWorld Orlando alongside his girlfriend, Kathryn "Kay" Morgan, the park's senior biologist. Among the attractions are new underwater tunnels that allow for a view of the undersea life.
While the park's lagoon gates are stuck open, a great white shark follows an unsuspecting team of water skiers into the park. Kay and her assistants notice that the resident dolphins, especially two individuals Cindy and Sandy, are afraid of leaving their pen and going out into the lagoon. Later, Calvin Bouchard, the park manager, welcomes his friend, adventurer and hunter Philip FitzRoyce, and Mike's younger brother Sean arrives for a visit having taken the summer off from college. That night, Shelby Overman, a mechanic, dives into the water to repair and secure the gates. He is attacked by the shark and killed, severing his right arm. Mike, Kay and Sean go out for drinks and Sean meets and begins dating Kelly Ann Bukowski, one of the park's water skiers. Meanwhile, two criminals sneak into the park and go underwater to steal coral they intend to sell, but both are killed by the shark in the process.
The next day, Kay and Mike are informed of Overman's disappearance. They go down in a submarine to look for his body, and during the search, they encounter a juvenile great white, only long. The dolphins rescue Kay and Mike, but the shark escapes back into the park. They inform Bouchard, and FitzRoyce suggests killing the shark on network television. Kay protests, instead recommending capturing the shark and keeping it alive in captivity, which would generate more publicity for the park. The shark is successfully captured, and Kay and her staff begin to nurse it to health. Calvin, desperate to start the money rolling in immediately, orders it moved to an exhibit, but the shark dies. Kelly persuades Sean out onto the water in a bumper boat, despite his trepidation due to his experiences in Amity.
Overman's corpse is discovered and, reviewing the body, Kay realizes that the shark that killed him is the first shark's long mother and that it must also be inside the park. She is able to convince Calvin about this newest development when the shark herself shows up at the window of the underwater café. Flushed out from her refuge inside a filtration pipe, the shark begins to wreak havoc on the park, injuring Kelly, and causing a leak that nearly drowns everyone in the underwater tunnel. FitzRoyce and his assistant, Jack Tate, go down to the filtration pipe in an attempt to lure the shark back in as a trap to kill it. As Jack closes the pipe's gate, FitzRoyce successfully leads the shark into the pipe, but his tether rope suddenly snaps due to the strong current generated by its pumps. Trapped inside the pipe and unable to reach the ladder to the exit hatch, he decides to kill the shark with a bang stick to no effect.
The shark proceeds to eat him whole before he can pull the pin from his grenade and kills him. Hearing that the shark has been lured into the pipe, Mike and Kay go down to repair the underwater tunnel, so the technicians can restore air pressure and drain the water. Calvin orders the pumps to be shut down to suffocate the shark, but this act instead allows it to break free from the pipe and attack Mike and Kay, but they are again saved by the dolphins. They make their way back to the control room and the civilians in the underwater tunnel are safely evacuated. The shark suddenly appears in front of the window and smashes through the glass, flooding the control room and killing a technician.
When the shark's mouth is open, Mike notices FitzRoyce's corpse which has drifted there from inside its belly still holding the grenade. Mike uses a bent pole to pull its pin, triggering the grenade's explosion and killing the shark while he and Kay take cover. Afterwards, Mike and Kay celebrate with the dolphins, who survived their battle with the shark.

Cast

  • Dennis Quaid as Michael Brody
  • Bess Armstrong as Kathryn "Kay" Morgan
  • Simon MacCorkindale as Philip FitzRoyce
  • Louis Gossett Jr. as Calvin Bouchard
  • John Putch as Sean Brody
  • Lea Thompson as Kelly Ann Bukowski
  • P. H. Moriarty as Jack Tate
  • Dan Blasko as Danny
  • Liz Morris as Liz
  • Lisa Maurer as Ethel
  • Harry Grant as Shelby Overman
  • Kaye Stevens as Mrs. Kallender

    Production

Development and writing

and Richard Zanuck, the producers for the first two films, originally pitched the second Jaws sequel as a spoof named Jaws 3, People 0. In 1979, Variety reported that the film would be produced by Matty Simmons, fresh off the success of National Lampoon's Animal House, with Zanuck and Brown serving as executive producers. Simmons outlined a story and commissioned National Lampoon writers John Hughes and Todd Carroll for a script. Joe Dante was briefly pursued as a director. The project was also to star Bo Derek and Richard Dreyfuss. The project was shut down as Steven Spielberg, who directed the first film, managed to convince Universal to not make the film by threatening to never work with the studio again. However, industry magazines also reported that the project failed because Zanuck and Brown wanted to produce a PG rated film, while Universal wished to include material which would have 'destined' the film to be rated R. According to Simmons, Zanuck and Brown preferred the original script, while Simmons also had other creative differences with Universal. David Brown later said that the studio attitude was that a spoof would have been a mistake and that it would be like "fouling in your own nest," although he himself felt that the project would have been successful.
Alan Landsburg bought the rights to produce the film. He attempted to involve experimental filmmaker Murray Lerner in Jaws 3, telling him that people at the Marineland theme park in Florida had seen his 1978 3D film Sea Dream. Lerner said that his "heart sank" when he was sent the first script of Jaws 3-D, saying, "I can't really get involved in this". As the production already had an art director, Lerner, who didn't like the script, declined to be involved in the film.
The film was directed by Joe Alves, who was the production designer for the first two films and was the second unit director for Jaws 2. It had been suggested that Alves co-direct the first sequel with Verna Fields when first director John D. Hancock left the project. It was filmed at SeaWorld Orlando, a marine zoological park; and Navarre, Florida, a community in the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola.
As with the first two films in the series, many people were involved in writing the film. Richard Matheson, who had written the script for Steven Spielberg's 1971 television film Duel, says that he wrote a "very interesting" outline, although the story is credited to "some other writer". Universal forced Matheson to include Martin Brody's two sons Michael and Sean, which the writer "thought was dumb". They also wanted it to be the same shark that was electrocuted in Jaws 2. Matheson was also requested to write a role specifically for Mickey Rooney, saying that "when Mickey Rooney turned out not to be available, the whole part was pointless". The writer was unhappy with the finished film.
I'm a good storyteller and I wrote a good outline and a good script. And if they had done it right and if it had been directed by somebody who knew how to direct, I think it would have been an excellent movie. Jaws 3-D was the only thing Joe Alves ever directed; the man is a very skilled production designer, but as a director, no. And the so-called 3D just made the film look murky – it had no effect whatsoever. It was a waste of time.

Guerdon Trueblood is credited for the story; a reviewer for the website SciFilm says that the screenplay was based upon Trueblood's story about a white shark swimming upstream and becoming trapped in a lake. Carl Gottlieb, who had also revised the screenplays for the first two Jaws films, was credited for the script alongside Matheson. Matheson has reported in interviews that the screenplay was revised by script doctors. Alves said in an interview in June 2020 that approximately 20 minutes of footage were cut from the final film due to Landsburg's insistence.
The character of Calvin Bouchard was originally intended to be the shark's final victim though the producers enjoyed his performance so much the script was rewritten for him to survive.