Jaws: The Revenge
Encyclopedia
Jaws: The Revenge, Also known as, 'Jaws 4: The Revenge', is a 1987 thriller film directed by Joseph Sargent
. It is the third sequel to Steven Spielberg
's Jaws
and the final installment of the series.
The film focuses on Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary
), and her convictions that a shark is after her family, especially when a great white
follows her to The Bahamas. Jaws: The Revenge was shot on location in New England and in the Caribbean, and completed on the Universal lot. Like the first two films of the series, Martha's Vineyard
was the location of the fictional Amity Island for the opening scenes of the film. Although it was preceded by Jaws 3-D
, The Revenge ignores the plot elements introduced in that film.
Jaws: The Revenge earned the lowest amount of money in the series, and due to its many plot holes and inconsistencies, is considered one of the worst movies ever made, with a rare 0% rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes
(in contrast to the original Jaws film, which maintains a rare 100% rating 36 years after its release).
), thinks it was from fear of the shark. She now lives with Sean (Mitchell Anderson
) and his fiancee Tiffany (Mary Smith). Sean works as a police deputy and is sent to clear a log from a buoy on Christmas Eve. As he does so, a massive great white shark bursts out of the water, rips off his arm, and then pulls him under the surface and kills him.
Ellen is convinced that the shark targeted Sean on purpose. She decides to go to the Bahamas to spend time with older son Michael (Lance Guest
), his wife Carla (Karen Young
), and their five-year-old daughter Thea (Judith Barsi
). There, Ellen meets carefree airplane pilot Hoagie (Michael Caine
).
Michael and his friends Jake (Mario Van Peebles
), William, and Clarence work as marine biologists. One day the enormous shark unexpectedly appears. Michael and Jake decide to keep quiet about the shark's presence because Ellen is trying to convince Michael to get a job on land.
Jake stabs a heartbeat tracking pole into the shark's side. The next day, Michael gets chased by the shark and barely manages to escape unharmed. Thea goes on an inflatable banana boat with her friend Margaret and her mom. During Carla's speech about her art work, the shark suddenly attacks, kills Margaret's mother and scares Thea. This time the shark has gone too far, in Ellen's opinion, so she takes Jake's boat and goes after it.
Michael returns home and lets the truth slip about the shark. Michael and Jake are flown by Hoagie to look for Ellen and they find her. Hoagie lands the plane on the water. Michael and Jake swim to the boat and the shark sinks the plane.
Hoagie survives. Jake and Michael hastily put together an explosive powered by electrical impulses. Michael and Jake go back up on deck and begin blasting the shark with the impulses, which begin to drive the shark mad. The shark unexpectedly leaps from the water, pulls Jake under and mauls him, but Jake manages to get the explosive into the shark's mouth before he is dragged under and attacked. Michael continues to blast the shark with the impulses, causing it to rise out of the water again, igniting the bomb right as Ellen drives the broken bowsprit into its stomach. The shark explodes and the ship sinks down to the bottom of the sea.
Michael then hears Jake, severely injured but alive, floating in the water. They all survive and get back to land. At the end, Hoagie flies Ellen back to Amity Island.
. In its predecessor, Michael is an engineer for SeaWorld
, whereas here he is a marine research scientist. Sean is not associated with the police force in Jaws 3-D, and there is no mention of their respective partners. Even one of the Universal Studios
press releases for Jaws: The Revenge omits Jaws 3-D by referring to Jaws: The Revenge as the "third film of the remarkable Jaws trilogy."
produced and directed the film. He had worked with Lorraine Gary
in 1969's The Marcus-Nelson Murders, for which he won his first Directors Guild of America
Award. Indeed, Steven Spielberg
cites this television movie
, that later spawned Kojak
, as motivation for casting Gary as Ellen Brody in the original Jaws film, besides the fact she was the wife of the chief executive of the studio at that time.
Jaws: The Revenge was filmed on location in New England
and in The Bahamas
, and completed on the Universal lot. Like the first two films of the series, Martha's Vineyard
was the location of the fictional Amity Island for the opening scenes of the film. Production commenced on February 2, 1987, by which time "snowstorms had blanketed" the island for almost a month, "providing a frosty backdrop for the opening scenes."
In addition to the 124 cast and crew members, 250 local extras were also hired. The majority of the extras were used as members of the local high school band, chorus and dramatic society that can be seen as the Brodys walk through the town, and during Sean's attack. A local gravestone maker produced 51 slabs for the mock graveyard used for Sean's funeral.
The cast and crew moved to Nassau
in The Bahamas
on February 9, beginning principal photography there the next day. Like the production of the first two films, they encountered many problems with varying weather conditions. The location did not offer the "perfect world" that the 38-day shoot required. Cover shots were filmed on shore and in interior sets. The film was shot in the Super 35 format.
The shark was to be launched from atop an 88 feet (26.8 m) long platform, made from the trussed turret of a 30 feet (9.1 m) crane, and floated out into Clifton Bay. Seven sharks, or segments, were produced.
The film company returned to Universal Studios to finish shooting on April 2. Principal photography was completed in Los Angeles
on May 26. Millar's special effects team, however, remained in Nassau, completing second unit photography on June 4.
A television documentary, "Behind the Scenes with Jaws: The Revenge", was broadcast in the USA on July 10, 1987. Twenty-two minutes in length, it was written and directed by William Rus for Zaloom Mayfield Productions.
Orange Coast, the magazine of Orange County
, reshooting the ending prevented Michael Caine from collecting his Academy Award for Hannah and Her Sisters
. One version can be seen on cable broadcasts, while the other version is featured on the home releases.
The new ending had left many audiences confused. In his scathing review, Roger Ebert
says that he cannot believe "that the director, Joseph Sargent, would film this final climactic scene so incompetently that there is not even an establishing shot, so we have to figure out what happened on the basis of empirical evidence."
The original ending was aired once on the USA channel: Jake does not survive and is not seen in the end scene on the tarmac; the final shot shows the shark slowly sinking toward the camera deeper into the ocean with the entire front half of Ellen's boat sticking from its side, finally revealing how massive the beast actually is.
reprised her role as Ellen Brody, a role she had portrayed in the first two films. In the press release, Gary says Jaws: The Revenge is "also about relationships which... makes it much more like the first Jaws." This was Gary's first film since appearing in Spielberg's 1941
eight years earlier. The press release proposes that the character "had much more depth and texture than either of the other films was able to explore. The promise of further developing this multi-dimensional woman under the extraordinary circumstances... intrigued Gary enough to lure her back to the screen after a lengthy hiatus." Although the film was always going to be centered on Gary, Roy Scheider
was offered a cameo. If he had accepted it, it was his Martin Brody character, rather than Sean Brody, who would have been killed by the shark at the beginning of the film.
Gary is the only member of the main cast who returned from the original film, although Lee Fierro made a brief cameo as Mrs. Kintner (the mother of the young boy who was killed in the original Jaws film), as did Fritzi Jane Courtney who played Mrs. Taft, one of the Amity town council members in both Jaws and Jaws 2. Cyprian R. Dube who played Amity Selectman Mr. Posner in both Jaws and Jaws 2 is upgraded to mayor following the death of Murray Hamilton
, who played Larry Vaughn. Gary states that one of the reasons she was attracted to the film was the idea of an on-screen romance with Academy Award winner Michael Caine
(who previously starred in another Peter Benchley
-adapted flop The Island
), who portrayed pilot Hoagie Newcombe.
Caine had mixed feelings about working on the film, both on the production and the final version. He thinks that it was a first for him to be involved with someone his own age in a film. He compares the relationship between two middle-aged people to the romance between two teenagers. Although disappointed not to be able to collect an Academy Award because of filming in the Bahamas, he was glad to be involved in the film. In the press release, he explains that "it is part of movie history... the original was one of the great all-time thrillers. I thought it might be nice to be mixed up with that. I liked the script very much." However, Caine later claimed: "I have never seen it [the film], but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific!" In his 1992 autobiography What's it All About?, he says that the film "will go down in my memory as the time when I won an Oscar, paid for a house and had a great holiday. Not bad for a flop movie."
Lance Guest
played Ellen's eldest son Michael. Guest had dropped out of his sophomore year at UCLA to appear in another sequel to a horror classic; Halloween II
(which was also distributed by Universal
). Karen Young
played his wife Carla. She commended the director's emphasis upon characterization. Thea, Michael and Carla's daughter, was played by Judith Barsi
. She was murdered by her father a year after the film was released.
Mario Van Peebles
played Jake, Michael's colleague. His father, Melvin Van Peebles
, has a cameo in the film as the mayor of Nassau. Mitchell Anderson
appeared as Ellen's youngest son, Sean. Lynn Whitfield
played Louisa, and stunt performer Diane Hetfield was the victim of the banana boat attack.
, who had previously provided music for Klute
, Marathon Man
(which featured Jaws star Roy Scheider
) and The Parallax View
. John Williams
' famous shark motif is integrated into the score, although Small removed the Orca theme. Soundtrack.net says that "Small's score is generally tense, and he comes up with a few new themes of his own."
The film also contained the songs "Nail it to the Wall", performed by Stacy Lattislaw, and the 1986 hit "You Got It All
", performed by The Jets
. Unlike the preceding entries in the series, the soundtrack was not released at the same time as the film, although Small appears to have mixed tracks for a release. However, it was given a promotional release in 2000.
Reviews for the soundtrack album were more favorable than for the film. Indeed, writing for filmscoremonthly, AK Benjamin says that "on a CD, Small's material fares better since it's not accompanied by the film." Dismissing the film as "engagingly unwatchable", he says that "Small certainly gave Revenge a lot more than it deserved -- and this a much better score than Deep Blue Sea
... whatever that means." Benjamin portrays Small as 'knowing' and his work as being superior to the film.
Upon Small's death in 2003, The Independent
wrote that the "composer of some distinction ... had the indignity of working on one of the worst films of all time". Like most reviews of the soundtrack, the article criticizes the film whilst saying "Small produced a fine score in the circumstances, as if anyone noticed."
was written by Hank Searls
, who also adapted Jaws 2
. It contains some subplots that were not included in the final film. The novel contains a subplot in which Hoagie is a government agent and he transports laundered money. The only reference to this in the film is when Michael Brody asks "What do you do when you’re not flying people?" to which Hoagie replies, "I deliver laundry."
The novelization suggests that the shark may be acting under the influence of a vengeful voodoo witch doctor
(who has a feud with the Brody family), and the shark's apparent revenge has magical implications, therefore the witch doctor is the 'revenge' and the shark is his tool. This also explains the strange psychic connection Ellen and the shark have with each other. The plot was deleted as it strayed too far away from the plot of the killer shark. However, at one point in the theatrical version, Michael Brody says, "Come on, sharks don’t commit murder. Tell me you don’t believe in that voodoo."
. It only grossed $7,154,890 in its opening weekend, when it opened to 1,606 screens. This was around $5 million less than its predecessor. It has also achieved the lowest total lifetime gross of the series.
It is often considered one of the worst movies ever made. It was rated by Entertainment Weekly
as one of "The 25 Worst Sequels Ever Made". Roger Ebert
said that it "is not simply a bad movie, but also a stupid and incompetent one." He lists several elements that he finds unbelievable, including that Ellen is "haunted by flashbacks to events where she was not present." Many of the errors in the film he identifies are listed on the Internet Movie Database
. Ebert also laments that Michael Caine could not attend the ceremony
to collect his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
earned for Hannah and Her Sisters
because of his shooting commitments on this film. He guesses that he may not have wanted to return to the shoot if he had left it.
The film contains many scenes that are considered implausible, such as the shark swimming from a New York island to the Bahamas (approx. 2000 km), in less than three days, and following Michael through an underwater labyrinth, as well as the implication that it was seeking revenge. The Independent says that "the film was riddled with inconsistencies [and] errors (sharks cannot float or roar like lions)". The special effects were criticized, especially some frames of the shark being speared by the boat's prow. Also, the mechanisms propelling the shark can be seen in some shots.
Within his otherwise lukewarm review, Derek Winnert ends with "the Bahamas backdrops are pretty and the shark looks as toothsome as ever." Richard Scheib also praises the "beautiful above and below water photography" and the "realistic mechanical shark," although he considers "the melodrama
back on dry land... a bore." Critics commented upon the sepia-toned flashback
s to the first film. A scene with Michael and Thea imitating each other is interspersed with shots from a similar scene in the 1975 film of Sean (Jay Mello) and Martin Brody. Similarly, the shark's destruction contains footage of Martin Brody aiming at the compressed air tank, saying "Smile, you son of a ...," The New York Times
comments "nothing kills a sequel faster than reverence... Joseph Sargent, the director, has turned this into a color-by-numbers version of Steven Spielberg's original Jaws."
The film received the award for "Worst Special Visual Effects" (Henry Millar), and was nominated for six other 1987 Golden Raspberry Awards
, including worst picture, director, actor ("Bruce the shark"), actress (Gary), supporting actor
(Caine), and screenplay.
(which was produced by Steven Spielberg
and featured Jaws 3 star Lea Thompson
), when Marty McFly
travels to the year 2015 and sees a theater showing Jaws 19, (fictionally directed by Max Spielberg) with the tagline "This time it's REALLY personal!". This alludes to the tagline of Jaws: The Revenge: "This time it's personal."
After being "attacked" by a promotional holographic image of the shark outside the theatre, Marty says "the shark still looks fake."
Comedian Richard Jeni
performed a popular stand-up routine based solely on this movie.
. It was released on Region 1
as a 'vanilla' disc by Goodtimes
, featuring Spanish and French subtitles. Although the keep case
packaging claimed that the aspect ratio
was 1.85:1, the feature is presented in 2.35:1. The soundtrack was presented in Dolby Digital
4.1, with one reviewer saying that the "stereo separation is great with ocean waves swirling around you, the bubbles going by during the scuba scenes, and Hoagey's airplane flying around behind you." The same reviewer praised the image transfer of Mcpherson's "extremely well photographed" cinematography. The film was re-released on DVD by Universal
on June 3, 2003.
Joseph Sargent
Joseph Sargent is an American film director. He has directed many television movies, but his best known feature film works are probably White Lightning, MacArthur, Nightmares and Jaws: The Revenge, with his most popular film being The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. He has won four Emmy Awards...
. It is the third sequel to Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
and the final installment of the series.
The film focuses on Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary
Lorraine Gary
Lorraine Gary is an American actress best known for her role as Ellen Brody in Jaws, Jaws 2, and Jaws: The Revenge...
), and her convictions that a shark is after her family, especially when a great white
Great white shark
The great white shark, scientific name Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. It is known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached...
follows her to The Bahamas. Jaws: The Revenge was shot on location in New England and in the Caribbean, and completed on the Universal lot. Like the first two films of the series, Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard is an island located south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, known for being an affluent summer colony....
was the location of the fictional Amity Island for the opening scenes of the film. Although it was preceded by Jaws 3-D
Jaws 3-D
Jaws 3-D is a 1983 thriller film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Lea Thompson and Louis Gossett, Jr...
, The Revenge ignores the plot elements introduced in that film.
Jaws: The Revenge earned the lowest amount of money in the series, and due to its many plot holes and inconsistencies, is considered one of the worst movies ever made, with a rare 0% rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
(in contrast to the original Jaws film, which maintains a rare 100% rating 36 years after its release).
Plot
On the island of Amity, sheriff Martin Brody, the hero of previous shark attacks, has died from a heart attack. His wife, Ellen Brody (Lorraine GaryLorraine Gary
Lorraine Gary is an American actress best known for her role as Ellen Brody in Jaws, Jaws 2, and Jaws: The Revenge...
), thinks it was from fear of the shark. She now lives with Sean (Mitchell Anderson
Mitchell Anderson
Mitchell Ogren Anderson is an American character actor.Anderson was born in Jamestown, New York, to a retail store owner mother and a father who worked in business...
) and his fiancee Tiffany (Mary Smith). Sean works as a police deputy and is sent to clear a log from a buoy on Christmas Eve. As he does so, a massive great white shark bursts out of the water, rips off his arm, and then pulls him under the surface and kills him.
Ellen is convinced that the shark targeted Sean on purpose. She decides to go to the Bahamas to spend time with older son Michael (Lance Guest
Lance Guest
Lance R. Guest is an American film and television actor.-Biography:Guest developed a serious interest in acting in the ninth grade, and he majored in theater while attending UCLA. He has starred in many theatrical films including his role as Jimmy alongside actress Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween...
), his wife Carla (Karen Young
Karen Young (actress)
Karen Young is an American actress.Born in Pequannock Township, New Jersey, Young studied at Rutgers University. After graduation she moved to New York City and became an actress, appearing in such films as 9½ Weeks, Jaws: The Revenge, Daylight, Mercy and Hoffa. Her ex-husband is Tom Noonan...
), and their five-year-old daughter Thea (Judith Barsi
Judith Barsi
Judith Eva Barsi was an American child actress. She was small in stature and often played characters younger than her actual age...
). There, Ellen meets carefree airplane pilot Hoagie (Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
).
Michael and his friends Jake (Mario Van Peebles
Mario Van Peebles
Mario "Chip" Cain Van Peebles is an American director and actor who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films. He is son of filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles.-Life and career:...
), William, and Clarence work as marine biologists. One day the enormous shark unexpectedly appears. Michael and Jake decide to keep quiet about the shark's presence because Ellen is trying to convince Michael to get a job on land.
Jake stabs a heartbeat tracking pole into the shark's side. The next day, Michael gets chased by the shark and barely manages to escape unharmed. Thea goes on an inflatable banana boat with her friend Margaret and her mom. During Carla's speech about her art work, the shark suddenly attacks, kills Margaret's mother and scares Thea. This time the shark has gone too far, in Ellen's opinion, so she takes Jake's boat and goes after it.
Michael returns home and lets the truth slip about the shark. Michael and Jake are flown by Hoagie to look for Ellen and they find her. Hoagie lands the plane on the water. Michael and Jake swim to the boat and the shark sinks the plane.
Hoagie survives. Jake and Michael hastily put together an explosive powered by electrical impulses. Michael and Jake go back up on deck and begin blasting the shark with the impulses, which begin to drive the shark mad. The shark unexpectedly leaps from the water, pulls Jake under and mauls him, but Jake manages to get the explosive into the shark's mouth before he is dragged under and attacked. Michael continues to blast the shark with the impulses, causing it to rise out of the water again, igniting the bomb right as Ellen drives the broken bowsprit into its stomach. The shark explodes and the ship sinks down to the bottom of the sea.
Michael then hears Jake, severely injured but alive, floating in the water. They all survive and get back to land. At the end, Hoagie flies Ellen back to Amity Island.
Cast
- Lorraine GaryLorraine GaryLorraine Gary is an American actress best known for her role as Ellen Brody in Jaws, Jaws 2, and Jaws: The Revenge...
as Ellen Brody - Lance GuestLance GuestLance R. Guest is an American film and television actor.-Biography:Guest developed a serious interest in acting in the ninth grade, and he majored in theater while attending UCLA. He has starred in many theatrical films including his role as Jimmy alongside actress Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween...
as Michael Brody - Mario Van PeeblesMario Van PeeblesMario "Chip" Cain Van Peebles is an American director and actor who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films. He is son of filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles.-Life and career:...
as Jake - Michael CaineMichael CaineSir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
as Hoagie Newcombe - Karen YoungKaren Young (actress)Karen Young is an American actress.Born in Pequannock Township, New Jersey, Young studied at Rutgers University. After graduation she moved to New York City and became an actress, appearing in such films as 9½ Weeks, Jaws: The Revenge, Daylight, Mercy and Hoffa. Her ex-husband is Tom Noonan...
as Carla Brody - Judith BarsiJudith BarsiJudith Eva Barsi was an American child actress. She was small in stature and often played characters younger than her actual age...
as Thea Brody - Lynn WhitfieldLynn WhitfieldLynn Whitfield is an American actress.Whitfield began her acting career in television and theatre, before progressing to supporting roles in film. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special and a NAACP Image Award for her performance as Josephine Baker in the...
as Louisa - Mitchell AndersonMitchell AndersonMitchell Ogren Anderson is an American character actor.Anderson was born in Jamestown, New York, to a retail store owner mother and a father who worked in business...
and Jay Mello (young) as Sean Brody - Cedric ScottCedric ScottCedric A. Scott is a Canadian Football League defensive tackle for the Edmonton Eskimos. He also played in the National Football League for the New York Giants and the Cleveland Browns, as well as in NFL Europa for the Scottish Claymores...
as Clarence - Charles Bowleg as William
- Melvin Van PeeblesMelvin Van PeeblesMelvin "Block" Van Peebles is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films...
as Mr. Witherspoon - Mary Smith as Tiffany
- Edna Billotto as Polly
- Fritzi Jane Courtney as Mrs. Taft
Series continuity
No reference is made to the character development or events depicted in Jaws 3-DJaws 3-D
Jaws 3-D is a 1983 thriller film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Lea Thompson and Louis Gossett, Jr...
. In its predecessor, Michael is an engineer for SeaWorld
SeaWorld
SeaWorld is a United States chain of marine mammal parks, oceanariums, and animal theme parks owned by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. The parks feature captive orca, sea lion, and dolphin shows and zoological displays featuring various other marine animals. There are operations in Orlando,...
, whereas here he is a marine research scientist. Sean is not associated with the police force in Jaws 3-D, and there is no mention of their respective partners. Even one of the Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
press releases for Jaws: The Revenge omits Jaws 3-D by referring to Jaws: The Revenge as the "third film of the remarkable Jaws trilogy."
Production
Joseph SargentJoseph Sargent
Joseph Sargent is an American film director. He has directed many television movies, but his best known feature film works are probably White Lightning, MacArthur, Nightmares and Jaws: The Revenge, with his most popular film being The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. He has won four Emmy Awards...
produced and directed the film. He had worked with Lorraine Gary
Lorraine Gary
Lorraine Gary is an American actress best known for her role as Ellen Brody in Jaws, Jaws 2, and Jaws: The Revenge...
in 1969's The Marcus-Nelson Murders, for which he won his first Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America is an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...
Award. Indeed, Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
cites this television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
, that later spawned Kojak
Kojak
Kojak is an American television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, bald New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak. It aired from October 24, 1973, to March 18, 1978, on CBS. It took the time slot of the popular Cannon series, which was moved one hour earlier...
, as motivation for casting Gary as Ellen Brody in the original Jaws film, besides the fact she was the wife of the chief executive of the studio at that time.
Jaws: The Revenge was filmed on location in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
and in The Bahamas
The Bahamas
The Bahamas , officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a nation consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets . It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola , northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States...
, and completed on the Universal lot. Like the first two films of the series, Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard is an island located south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, known for being an affluent summer colony....
was the location of the fictional Amity Island for the opening scenes of the film. Production commenced on February 2, 1987, by which time "snowstorms had blanketed" the island for almost a month, "providing a frosty backdrop for the opening scenes."
In addition to the 124 cast and crew members, 250 local extras were also hired. The majority of the extras were used as members of the local high school band, chorus and dramatic society that can be seen as the Brodys walk through the town, and during Sean's attack. A local gravestone maker produced 51 slabs for the mock graveyard used for Sean's funeral.
The cast and crew moved to Nassau
Nassau, Bahamas
Nassau is the capital, largest city, and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has a population of 248,948 , 70 percent of the entire population of The Bahamas...
in The Bahamas
The Bahamas
The Bahamas , officially the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a nation consisting of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets . It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola , northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States...
on February 9, beginning principal photography there the next day. Like the production of the first two films, they encountered many problems with varying weather conditions. The location did not offer the "perfect world" that the 38-day shoot required. Cover shots were filmed on shore and in interior sets. The film was shot in the Super 35 format.
Special effects
The special effects team, headed by Henry Millar, had arrived at South Beach, Nassau on January 12, 1987, almost a month before principal photography commenced there. In the official press release, Millar says that when he got involved "we didn't even have a script... but as the story developed and they started telling us all what they wanted... I knew this wasn't going to be like any other shark anyone had ever seen."The shark was to be launched from atop an 88 feet (26.8 m) long platform, made from the trussed turret of a 30 feet (9.1 m) crane, and floated out into Clifton Bay. Seven sharks, or segments, were produced.
Two models were fully articulated, two were made for jumping, one for ramming, one was a half shark (the top half) and one was just a fin. The two fully articulated models each had 22 sectioned ribs and moveable jaws covered by a flexible water-based latex skin, measured 25 feet (7.6 m) in length and weighed 2500 pounds. Each tooth was half-a-foot long and as sharp as it looked. All models were housed under cover... in a secret location on the island.
The film company returned to Universal Studios to finish shooting on April 2. Principal photography was completed in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
on May 26. Millar's special effects team, however, remained in Nassau, completing second unit photography on June 4.
Underwater sequences
Cinematographer John McPherson also supervised the underwater unit, which was headed by Pete Romano. Whereas underwater photography was normally filmed with an anamorphic lens, requiring overhead lighting, Romano filmed these "sequences with Zeiss, a 35 mm super-speed lens, which allows the natural ambiance to come through on film." Additional underwater photography was completed in a water tank, measuring 50 feet (15.2 m) by 100 feet (30.5 m) across, and 17 feet (5.2 m) in depth, in Universal Studio's Stage 27. Also, a replica of Nassau's Clifton Bay and its skyline was created on the man-made Falls Lake on the studio backlot.A television documentary, "Behind the Scenes with Jaws: The Revenge", was broadcast in the USA on July 10, 1987. Twenty-two minutes in length, it was written and directed by William Rus for Zaloom Mayfield Productions.
Ending changes
In the ending that was originally filmed, Ellen rammed the shark with Michael's boat, mortally wounding it. The shark then causes the boat to break apart with its death contortions, forcing the people on the boat to jump off to avoid going down with it. Test audiences disapproved of this ending. A new ending was shot with the shark getting stabbed with the bow sprit and then exploding; and with Jake being found wounded but alive. According toOrange Coast, the magazine of Orange County
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
, reshooting the ending prevented Michael Caine from collecting his Academy Award for Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begin and end with a family Thanksgiving dinner...
. One version can be seen on cable broadcasts, while the other version is featured on the home releases.
The new ending had left many audiences confused. In his scathing review, Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
says that he cannot believe "that the director, Joseph Sargent, would film this final climactic scene so incompetently that there is not even an establishing shot, so we have to figure out what happened on the basis of empirical evidence."
The original ending was aired once on the USA channel: Jake does not survive and is not seen in the end scene on the tarmac; the final shot shows the shark slowly sinking toward the camera deeper into the ocean with the entire front half of Ellen's boat sticking from its side, finally revealing how massive the beast actually is.
Casting
Lorraine GaryLorraine Gary
Lorraine Gary is an American actress best known for her role as Ellen Brody in Jaws, Jaws 2, and Jaws: The Revenge...
reprised her role as Ellen Brody, a role she had portrayed in the first two films. In the press release, Gary says Jaws: The Revenge is "also about relationships which... makes it much more like the first Jaws." This was Gary's first film since appearing in Spielberg's 1941
1941 (film)
1941 is a 1979 period comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and featuring an ensemble cast including John Belushi, Ned Beatty, John Candy, Toshiro Mifune, Christopher Lee and Dan Aykroyd...
eight years earlier. The press release proposes that the character "had much more depth and texture than either of the other films was able to explore. The promise of further developing this multi-dimensional woman under the extraordinary circumstances... intrigued Gary enough to lure her back to the screen after a lengthy hiatus." Although the film was always going to be centered on Gary, Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...
was offered a cameo. If he had accepted it, it was his Martin Brody character, rather than Sean Brody, who would have been killed by the shark at the beginning of the film.
Gary is the only member of the main cast who returned from the original film, although Lee Fierro made a brief cameo as Mrs. Kintner (the mother of the young boy who was killed in the original Jaws film), as did Fritzi Jane Courtney who played Mrs. Taft, one of the Amity town council members in both Jaws and Jaws 2. Cyprian R. Dube who played Amity Selectman Mr. Posner in both Jaws and Jaws 2 is upgraded to mayor following the death of Murray Hamilton
Murray Hamilton
Murray Hamilton was an American stage, screen, and television actor who appeared in such memorable films as The Hustler, The Graduate and Jaws.-Early life:...
, who played Larry Vaughn. Gary states that one of the reasons she was attracted to the film was the idea of an on-screen romance with Academy Award winner Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
(who previously starred in another Peter Benchley
Peter Benchley
Peter Bradford Benchley was an American author, best known for his novel Jaws and its subsequent film adaptation, the latter co-written by Benchley and directed by Steven Spielberg...
-adapted flop The Island
The Island (1980 film)
The Island is a 1980 American thriller film, directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Michael Caine and David Warner. The film was based on a novel of the same name by Peter Benchley who also wrote the screenplay...
), who portrayed pilot Hoagie Newcombe.
The first day we were to work together I was nervous as a school girl. We were shooting a Junkanoo FestivalJunkanooJunkanoo is a street parade with music, which occurs in many towns across The Bahamas and The Turks and Caicos Islands every Boxing Day , New Year's Day and, more recently, in the summer on the island of Grand Bahama. The largest Junkanoo parade happens in Nassau, the capital...
with noisy drums and hundreds of extras. But he never faltered in his concentration and he put me completely at ease. It was all so natural. He's an extraordinary actor -- and just a nice human being.
Caine had mixed feelings about working on the film, both on the production and the final version. He thinks that it was a first for him to be involved with someone his own age in a film. He compares the relationship between two middle-aged people to the romance between two teenagers. Although disappointed not to be able to collect an Academy Award because of filming in the Bahamas, he was glad to be involved in the film. In the press release, he explains that "it is part of movie history... the original was one of the great all-time thrillers. I thought it might be nice to be mixed up with that. I liked the script very much." However, Caine later claimed: "I have never seen it [the film], but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific!" In his 1992 autobiography What's it All About?, he says that the film "will go down in my memory as the time when I won an Oscar, paid for a house and had a great holiday. Not bad for a flop movie."
Lance Guest
Lance Guest
Lance R. Guest is an American film and television actor.-Biography:Guest developed a serious interest in acting in the ninth grade, and he majored in theater while attending UCLA. He has starred in many theatrical films including his role as Jimmy alongside actress Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween...
played Ellen's eldest son Michael. Guest had dropped out of his sophomore year at UCLA to appear in another sequel to a horror classic; Halloween II
Halloween II
Halloween II is a 1981 slasher film directed by Rick Rosenthal, and written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It is the second installment in the Halloween series and is a direct sequel to the Halloween set on the same night of October 31, 1978 as the seemingly unkillable Michael Myers continues to...
(which was also distributed by Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
). Karen Young
Karen Young (actress)
Karen Young is an American actress.Born in Pequannock Township, New Jersey, Young studied at Rutgers University. After graduation she moved to New York City and became an actress, appearing in such films as 9½ Weeks, Jaws: The Revenge, Daylight, Mercy and Hoffa. Her ex-husband is Tom Noonan...
played his wife Carla. She commended the director's emphasis upon characterization. Thea, Michael and Carla's daughter, was played by Judith Barsi
Judith Barsi
Judith Eva Barsi was an American child actress. She was small in stature and often played characters younger than her actual age...
. She was murdered by her father a year after the film was released.
Mario Van Peebles
Mario Van Peebles
Mario "Chip" Cain Van Peebles is an American director and actor who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films. He is son of filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles.-Life and career:...
played Jake, Michael's colleague. His father, Melvin Van Peebles
Melvin Van Peebles
Melvin "Block" Van Peebles is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films...
, has a cameo in the film as the mayor of Nassau. Mitchell Anderson
Mitchell Anderson
Mitchell Ogren Anderson is an American character actor.Anderson was born in Jamestown, New York, to a retail store owner mother and a father who worked in business...
appeared as Ellen's youngest son, Sean. Lynn Whitfield
Lynn Whitfield
Lynn Whitfield is an American actress.Whitfield began her acting career in television and theatre, before progressing to supporting roles in film. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special and a NAACP Image Award for her performance as Josephine Baker in the...
played Louisa, and stunt performer Diane Hetfield was the victim of the banana boat attack.
Soundtrack
The score was composed and conducted by Michael SmallMichael Small
Michael Small was an American film score composer best known for his scores to thriller movies such as The Parallax View, Marathon Man, and The Star Chamber. Relatively few of his scores are available on compact disc...
, who had previously provided music for Klute
Klute
Klute is a 1971 film which tells the story of a prostitute who assists a detective in solving a missing persons case. It stars Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi and Roy Scheider. The movie was written by Andy Lewis and Dave Lewis and directed by Alan J. Pakula.Klute was the first...
, Marathon Man
Marathon Man (film)
Marathon Man is a 1976 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. The film was directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, and Laurence Olivier. The original music score was composed by Michael Small....
(which featured Jaws star Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...
) and The Parallax View
The Parallax View
The Parallax View is a 1974 American thriller film directed by Alan J. Pakula and starring Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, Hume Cronyn and William Daniels. The film was adapted by David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr and an uncredited Robert Towne from the 1970 novel by Loren Singer...
. John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
' famous shark motif is integrated into the score, although Small removed the Orca theme. Soundtrack.net says that "Small's score is generally tense, and he comes up with a few new themes of his own."
The film also contained the songs "Nail it to the Wall", performed by Stacy Lattislaw, and the 1986 hit "You Got It All
You Got It All
"You Got It All" was the fourth single released by the 1980s dance-pop band, The Jets, from their commercially successful debut 1985 album, The Jets. It was written by Rupert Holmes, most famous for the song, "Escape ."...
", performed by The Jets
The Jets (band)
The Jets are a family band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, composed of brothers and sisters who specialize in pop, R&B, and dance music, particularly Latin freestyle.The group officially formed in 1985, with the original lineup fizzling out by 1990...
. Unlike the preceding entries in the series, the soundtrack was not released at the same time as the film, although Small appears to have mixed tracks for a release. However, it was given a promotional release in 2000.
Reviews for the soundtrack album were more favorable than for the film. Indeed, writing for filmscoremonthly, AK Benjamin says that "on a CD, Small's material fares better since it's not accompanied by the film." Dismissing the film as "engagingly unwatchable", he says that "Small certainly gave Revenge a lot more than it deserved -- and this a much better score than Deep Blue Sea
Deep Blue Sea
Deep Blue Sea is a 1999 science fiction horror film that stars Thomas Jane, Saffron Burrows, LL Cool J, and Samuel L Jackson. The film was directed by Renny Harlin and was released in the United States on July 28, 1999.- Plot :...
... whatever that means." Benjamin portrays Small as 'knowing' and his work as being superior to the film.
The hysterical coda tacked onto the end of "Revenge and Finale" is almost worth the price of the disc, as it no doubt sums up Small's opinion of the film. It's sad that the great Michael Small was delegated utter crap like Jaws the Revenge in the late '80s -- and even worse that he never found his way back to the material that he deserves.
Upon Small's death in 2003, The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
wrote that the "composer of some distinction ... had the indignity of working on one of the worst films of all time". Like most reviews of the soundtrack, the article criticizes the film whilst saying "Small produced a fine score in the circumstances, as if anyone noticed."
Track listing
- "Main Title"
- "Underwater"
- "The Bahamas"
- "Premonition"
- "Moray Eel"
- "Alive Or Dead"
- "The Shark"
- "Revenge & Finale"
Novelization
The novelizationNovelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
was written by Hank Searls
Hank Searls
Hank Searls is an American author and screenwriter. His novels included The Crowded Sky , which was adapted as a film with Dana Andrews and Rhonda Fleming, The Penetrators , and The Pilgrim Project , which was adapted as the 1968 film Countdown...
, who also adapted Jaws 2
Jaws 2
Jaws 2 is a 1978 thriller film and the first sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws , which is based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name...
. It contains some subplots that were not included in the final film. The novel contains a subplot in which Hoagie is a government agent and he transports laundered money. The only reference to this in the film is when Michael Brody asks "What do you do when you’re not flying people?" to which Hoagie replies, "I deliver laundry."
The novelization suggests that the shark may be acting under the influence of a vengeful voodoo witch doctor
Witch doctor
A witch doctor originally referred to a type of healer who treated ailments believed to be caused by witchcraft. It is currently used to refer to healers in some third world regions, who use traditional healing rather than contemporary medicine...
(who has a feud with the Brody family), and the shark's apparent revenge has magical implications, therefore the witch doctor is the 'revenge' and the shark is his tool. This also explains the strange psychic connection Ellen and the shark have with each other. The plot was deleted as it strayed too far away from the plot of the killer shark. However, at one point in the theatrical version, Michael Brody says, "Come on, sharks don’t commit murder. Tell me you don’t believe in that voodoo."
Critical response
Jaws: The Revenge was universally panned by critics. Though the film is considered a box-office bomb it was able to cover costs (estimated US$23 million) with a worldwide box office take of $51,881,013. The film, though, continued the series diminishing returnsDiminishing returns
In economics, diminishing returns is the decrease in the marginal output of a production process as the amount of a single factor of production is increased, while the amounts of all other factors of production stay constant.The law of diminishing returns In economics, diminishing returns (also...
. It only grossed $7,154,890 in its opening weekend, when it opened to 1,606 screens. This was around $5 million less than its predecessor. It has also achieved the lowest total lifetime gross of the series.
It is often considered one of the worst movies ever made. It was rated by Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
as one of "The 25 Worst Sequels Ever Made". Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
said that it "is not simply a bad movie, but also a stupid and incompetent one." He lists several elements that he finds unbelievable, including that Ellen is "haunted by flashbacks to events where she was not present." Many of the errors in the film he identifies are listed on the Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
. Ebert also laments that Michael Caine could not attend the ceremony
59th Academy Awards
The 59th Academy Awards were presented March 30, 1987 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn, and Paul Hogan....
to collect his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
earned for Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begin and end with a family Thanksgiving dinner...
because of his shooting commitments on this film. He guesses that he may not have wanted to return to the shoot if he had left it.
Within his otherwise lukewarm review, Derek Winnert ends with "the Bahamas backdrops are pretty and the shark looks as toothsome as ever." Richard Scheib also praises the "beautiful above and below water photography" and the "realistic mechanical shark," although he considers "the melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
back on dry land... a bore." Critics commented upon the sepia-toned flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
s to the first film. A scene with Michael and Thea imitating each other is interspersed with shots from a similar scene in the 1975 film of Sean (Jay Mello) and Martin Brody. Similarly, the shark's destruction contains footage of Martin Brody aiming at the compressed air tank, saying "Smile, you son of a ...," The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
comments "nothing kills a sequel faster than reverence... Joseph Sargent, the director, has turned this into a color-by-numbers version of Steven Spielberg's original Jaws."
The film received the award for "Worst Special Visual Effects" (Henry Millar), and was nominated for six other 1987 Golden Raspberry Awards
1987 Golden Raspberry Awards
The 8th Golden Raspberry Awards were held on April 10, 1988 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to recognize the worst the film industry had to offer in 1987. Leonard Part 6 was the biggest "winner" with three awards out of five nominations. Although he did not attend the ceremony,...
, including worst picture, director, actor ("Bruce the shark"), actress (Gary), supporting actor
Supporting actor
A supporting actor is an actor who performs roles in a play or film other than that of the leads.These roles range from bit parts to secondary leads. They are sometimes but not necessarily character roles. A supporting actor must also use restraint not to upstage the main actor/actress in the...
(Caine), and screenplay.
Cultural impact
The increasing number of sequels in the Jaws series was spoofed in the 1989 film Back to the Future Part IIBack to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part II is a 1989 American science fiction comedy film and the second installment of the Back to the Future trilogy. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Thomas F. Wilson and Lea Thompson...
(which was produced by Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
and featured Jaws 3 star Lea Thompson
Lea Thompson
Lea Katherine Thompson is an American actress and director. She is best known for her 1990s NBC situation comedy Caroline in the City and her portrayal of Lorraine Baines McFly, Marty McFly's mother, in the Back to the Future trilogy...
), when Marty McFly
Marty McFly
Martin Seamus "Marty" McFly, Sr. is the protagonist in the Back to the Future film trilogy, and is portrayed by actor Michael J. Fox. Marty was also the protagonist in the animated series where he was voiced by David Kaufman...
travels to the year 2015 and sees a theater showing Jaws 19, (fictionally directed by Max Spielberg) with the tagline "This time it's REALLY personal!". This alludes to the tagline of Jaws: The Revenge: "This time it's personal."
After being "attacked" by a promotional holographic image of the shark outside the theatre, Marty says "the shark still looks fake."
Comedian Richard Jeni
Richard Jeni
Richard John Colangelo , better known by the stage name of Richard Jeni, was an American stand-up comedian and actor.-Early life:...
performed a popular stand-up routine based solely on this movie.
DVD release
Jaws The Revenge was the first film of the series to be released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
. It was released on Region 1
DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
as a 'vanilla' disc by Goodtimes
GoodTimes Entertainment
GoodTimes Entertainment, Ltd. was a home video company that originated in 1984 under the name of GoodTimes Home Video. Though it produced its own titles, the company was well-known due to its distribution of media from third parties and classics...
, featuring Spanish and French subtitles. Although the keep case
Keep case
A keep case or poly-box is a type of DVD packaging. From the well-known brand Amaray, this type of case is often called Amaray case, creating a genericized trademark and ambiguities about the real manufacturer of the case....
packaging claimed that the aspect ratio
Aspect ratio (image)
The aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of the width of the image to its height, expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. That is, for an x:y aspect ratio, no matter how big or small the image is, if the width is divided into x units of equal length and the height is measured using this...
was 1.85:1, the feature is presented in 2.35:1. The soundtrack was presented in Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
4.1, with one reviewer saying that the "stereo separation is great with ocean waves swirling around you, the bubbles going by during the scuba scenes, and Hoagey's airplane flying around behind you." The same reviewer praised the image transfer of Mcpherson's "extremely well photographed" cinematography. The film was re-released on DVD by Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
on June 3, 2003.