Chief Brody’s widow believes that her family is deliberately being targeted by another shark in search of revenge.
Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the franchise….
We’ve now reached the final entry in the franchise and I’m glad of it, by now the series had become a joke and this film was evidence of it. How this ever got the green light to go ahead is beyond me.
The film is mainly known for being one of Michael Caine’s notorious “paycheck pictures” , When Caine was asked about this movie in an interview, he answered, “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”
That’s right, not even Michael Caine could save this film from being as awful as it is. The thing that really makes me laugh is according to this film, the events that occurred in “Jaws 3″never took place, if anything that did “Jaws 3” a favour.
It hurts my brain to think that this film had a budget of $23,000,000, just watching the film you onder where that money went (apart from Michael Caine’s bank account) as the shark looks truly awful and so goddamn cheap it’s unreal.
“Jaws – The Revenge” is best left avoided, seriously just don’t watch it!
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
The movie’s main tagline “This time it’s personal” was parodied in Back to the Future Part II (1989) where the fictional “Jaws 19”, directed by Max Spielberg, has a movie poster that says, “This time it’s REALLY personal!”. The phrase “This time it’s personal” has since become a cliché tagline for a number of sequel movies.
The original script features a cameo for Richard Dreyfuss’s character from the original Jaws (1975), marine biologist Matt Hooper. In Hooper’s scene, he calls the Brodys and is greeted on the phone by Thea, who knows him as “Uncle Matt”. Hooper is established as being close to Michael and Carla, who calls him “my second favorite marine biologist”, and he gives them his condolences about Sean’s death. Hooper and Michael discuss their careers, the late Martin Brody, and Hooper’s once spending Christmas with the family with Martin dressed as Santa Claus. The scene ends when Michael heads off to summon Ellen to the phone to talk to Hooper.
Lorraine Gary’s final film, and her first film role in eight years.
Roy Scheider was offered a cameo, but declined, stating “Satan himself could not get me to do Jaws part 4”. Reportedly, if Scheider had accepted the bit part, the shark would’ve killed his character at the start of the movie.
This film is listed among the 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made in John Wilson’s book “The Official Razzie® Movie Guide.”
Michael Caine could not accept his Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) because he was busy filming this movie.
A crucial subplot involves Michael Caine’s character smuggling drugs onto the island. The scenes were shot, then deleted during post-production because it took away from the film’s main premise involving the shark. It’s fully detailed in the film’s novelization.
The water in the tank where the climax was shot was filled with blue dye, which turned Michael Caine’s and Lorraine Gary’s hair blue.
When Michael returns home to his mother’s after his brother is killed, in her living room are several guests, including Lee Fierro. Fierro played Mrs. Kintner in the first Jaws (1975) and her character’s son Alex Kintner was the second victim killed by the shark. Fritzi Jane Courtney who played Mrs Taft in the first two Jaws films is also present.
Comedian Richard Jeni considered this the worst movie of all time, and built a substantial portion of his stand-up comedy act around it.
Michael Caine accepted his role after seeing only the first line of the script, which was, “Fade in: Hawaii”. Caine had wanted to shoot a movie in Hawaii for a while.
Murray Hamilton was asked to reprise his role as the Mayor in a short appearance at the beginning of the film. He died of cancer before filming started.
A portrait of Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) can be seen at Amity’s police office.
Michael Caine is the second actor to follow up an Academy Award-winning performance with a Razzie Award-nominated performance in a Jaws (1975) sequel. The first was Louis Gossett Jr. who won an Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and then was nominated for a Razzie for Jaws 3-D (1983).
Bruce the Rubber Shark was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor in this film, thus making him the first animal nominated for one.
Some boat scenes (actor close-ups) where filmed at Falls Lake, at Universal City Studios, California, near the Psycho house on the back lot.
The only Jaws (1975) sequel not to be numerated (unlike Jaws 2 (1978) and Jaws 3-D (1983)) which would have had it called “Jaws 4”, which was actually a working title for the movie and still acts as an informal title for the picture. Another working title for the film was “Jaws 87”, which is the year it was released in.
Mario Van Peebles wrote his own part.
Fourth and final “Jaws” film.
Michael Caine previously starred in Peter Benchley’s The Island (1980). Co-starring in Jaws: The Revenge (1987), this third sequel to Peter Benchley’s Jaws (1975) gave Caine two star appearances in Benchley-related movies.
This is the only Jaws film not written by Carl Gottlieb and/ or Howard Sackler.
The only movie in the series which doesn’t take place in the summertime. The first Jaws takes place around the fourth of July, Jaws 2 takes place in June, Jaws 3 takes place at some point in the summer time and this movie takes place around Christmas and New Years.
Set mostly in the Bahamas, the film’s storyline includes its Junkanoo Festival, previously known to cinema-goers from also featuring in the earlier James Bond movie Thunderball (1965). The annual parade is also featured in the later movie After the Sunset (2004).
Despite the fact that this was filmed in Super 35, “Filmed in Panavision” is listed in the end credits.
Actress Lorraine Gary appeared as Ellen Brody in three of the four “Jaws” films, as did supporting actress Fritzi Jane Courtney who played her friend Mrs. Taft. Jaws 3-D (1983) was the only one that neither actress appeared in. That movie was also arguably the only one that Roy Scheider did not appear as well. He appeared in the first two films, and was seen in “Jaws: The Revenge” but only via the inclusion of a framed photograph and archive footage used for flashbacks.
The name of the two-mast ketch sailing boat was “Neptune’s Folly”.
The Theatrical Version’s ending, in which the shark head blows up, reuses footage from the first picture’s ending, in which the headless bleeding shark sinks. The ropes from the barrels Quint used are still there.
The revised ending, where Mario Van Peebles’ character survives, began filming five days after the movie was released in the United States. The revised ending was first seen overseas.
According to ‘Rating the Movies’, “After a miserable theatrical showing in the U.S., the film was given a new ending for its European release”. The ending is the version where when the shark is stabbed, the shark is blown to pieces with 3 shots from the first movie. This ending also has Jake floating around after the sharks destruction. When AMC aired Jaws the Revenge, they would show the ending where the shark is stabbed, bleeds profusely, then sinks. As of 2014, however, AMC no longer shows this ending. AMC shows the explosion ending. This often leads to confusion for viewers on the original ending when watching a re-run on TV.
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