ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - July 22nd
"JAWS 3-D" released in 1983
Watch the Jaws 3-D trailer below!
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As a team of water skiers practice for the opening ceremony of SeaWorld in Florida, they are unbeknownst followed by a great white shark, that becomes trapped in SeaWorld's man-made lagoon. Mike Bordy (Quaid), the parks underwater engineer who designed the tunnels and attractions for the park, and his girlfriend Dr. Kathryn "Kay" Morgan (Bess Armstrong), a senior marine biologist, start to observe strange behaviors of the dolphins Cindy and Sandy who are afraid to leave their pen. Soon, the shark claims it's first victim, a SeaWorld diver Shelby Overman while making repairs to the underwater sea gate, in addition to two other men in their inflatable boat the same night after they sneak into the lagoon to steal coral. Informed of Overman's disappearance, Mike and Kay search the lagoon in a submersible and encounter the deadly shark, rescued at the last moment by Cindy and Sandy. Informing the park owner Calvin Bouchard (Lou Gossitt Jr.) of the situation, Bouchard enlists famed nature photographer (and hunter) Phillip FitzRoyce (Simon MacCorkindale) to capture it alive. Although successful, the shark soon dies in captivity, and Mike and Kay discover that the shark they captured was merely the baby of a much larger - and much angrier - mother shark, who proceeds to go on a rampage throughout the park, endangering the thousands of lives of tourists arriving for the grand opening of SeaWorld!
Kathryn Morgan: Overman was killed inside the park. The baby was caught inside the park. Its mother is inside the park.
Top: A great white shark follows the water skiers inside the SeaWorld lagoon;
Above: Mike Brody (Dennis Quaid) and Kay Morgan (Bess Armstrong)
discuss the strange behavior of the dolphins
Original Jaws and Jaws 2 producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck remained on the project as Executive Producers only, with Matty Simmons, fresh off the success of National Lampoon's Animal House, being brought on-board to produce the third film which was intended to be a comedy spoof of the series, with a working title of National Lampoon's Jaws 3, People 0. The premise would be about a movie studio trying to make a second sequel to Jaws, and would begin with original Jaws author Peter Benchley being eaten in his pool by a shark, and included a naked Bo Derek and shark-costumed aliens. Joe Dante was attached as director, but Steven Spielberg rejected the idea of a spoof to his earlier film and threatened to walk from his deal with Universal. Later, when Universal officially rejected the premise for Jaws 3, Zanuck and Brown quit the studio instead.
Calvin Bouchard: Was it the shark?
Kathryn Morgan: It was a shark. It was a shark with a bite radius about a yard across.
Philip FitzRoyce: Don't be silly. That would indicate a shark of some 35 feet in length.
Top: The remains of doomed diver Overman;
Above: Shark hunters Phillip FitzRoyce (Simon MacCorkindale - right)
and his assistant Jack Tate (P.H. Moriarty) prepare to catch the shark
Steering the project back to it's roots was director Joe Alves (production designer on the first Jaws, and 2nd unit director on Jaws 2). As with the first two films in the series, many people were involved in writing the film, though ultimately Guerdon Trueblood was credited for the story and Carl Gottlieb and Richard Mathison for the screenplay. Although Mathison claimed in later interviews that the film was bedeviled with script doctors that ruined the central premise of a white shark swimming upstream and becoming trapped in a lake. Jaws 3-D also was the only film in the franchise not to include actors from the previous films. Roy Scheider, who played Police Chief Martin Brody in the first two films, had already had a very bad experience filming Jaws 2 and made sure he accepted the starring role in Blue Thunder to ensure he would not be cast in Jaws 3-D.
Little Girl: Daddy, look at the fish!
[Father turns and sees the shark coming straight at the underwater tunnel]
Man: Holy shit!
Top and Above: Mike, Kay and park manager Calvin Bouchard (Lou Gossitt Jr.)
look on as the shark attacks the underwater control room!
The early 80's also had a revival in the popularity of 3D, with horror films Amityville 3D and Friday the 13th Part 3 already using the 3-D gimmick that first-time director Alves believed would give Jaws 3-D an edge. Jaws 3-D had two 3D consultants: the production started with Chris Condon, president of StereoVision, before enlisting Stan Loth when production later shifted to the team for the Arrivision 3D which Alves believed was a superior system because it has a wider variety of lenses, although both cameras were used during filming. Initially he filmmakers planned to have very few "pop-out" effects where objects extend beyond the screen in 3D, but soon studio executives added pressure to include more, worried that audiences would leave disappointed and spread bad word-of-mouth if the 3D were used mainly for depth.
Top: Two Arrivision 3D cameras shoot the action on location in Florida;
Above: Miniature photography of the shark
Like the previous films, Jaws 3-D was released in over a thousand screens, but critical response was very poor. The 3D was criticized as being a gimmick to attract audiences to the aging series, with Vince Leo later writing, "Campy performances, cheesy special effects, and downright awful dialogue all contribute to making Jaws 3 a truly dismal experience for just about everyone. It's not only hard to believe that a sequel this downright abominable didn't kill the franchise, but that it actually would be followed by a movie that was arguably worse — Jaws: the Revenge." Leonard Maltin calls the film a "road-company Irwin Allen type-disaster film" and notes that its premise is similar to the 1955 sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Jaws 3-D has seen a revival of sorts with the advent of 3-D television and blu-ray. In 2016, Jaws 3-D was broadcast by TVB Pearl in Hong Kong in a heavily a heavily advertised event and required viewers to buy or obtain a pair of anaglyph glasses to fully enjoy the movie; this was an anaglyph 3D version of the film created from the Arrivision original, and was a huge hit among audiences!
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 12%
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