Development As
MCA Universal was going through a difficult period, its CEO
Sidney Sheinberg saw that a third sequel to
Jaws was likely to make a good profit, following the commercial success of
Jaws 3-D, despite generally attracting negative reviews. Sheinberg also saw an opportunity to promote the
Jaws ride at
Universal Studios. Around this time, Sheinberg approached
Joseph Sargent about directing the film. Sargent had worked with
Lorraine Gary in 1973's
The Marcus-Nelson Murders, for which he won a
Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Miniseries or Movies for Television, his first.
Steven Spielberg cites this
television film, which later spawned
Kojak, as motivation for casting Gary as Ellen Brody in the original
Jaws film, in addition to the fact she was the wife of the studio's chief executive Sheinberg at that time. Regarding
Revenge, Gary remarked in an interview: "I made a good deal on this film, but I didn't make as good a deal as I would have if I weren't married to Sid." In an interview with the
Boston Herald, Sargent called
Revenge "a ticking bomb waiting to go off", saying that MCA Inc. president Sheinberg "expects a miracle." Sheinberg asked Sargent to direct the film in late September 1986. According to Sargent, Sheinberg "cut through all the slow lanes and got
Jaws: The Revenge off and running." The first draft was completed in mid-December, The film was developed under the working title ''Jaws '87
, but by February 1987, the title Jaws: The Revenge'' was being used. The colon within the title is used by some sources although the colon is not included in the film's opening credits, or on the poster. The film has no continuity from
Jaws 3-D. In its predecessor, Mike Brody (played by
Dennis Quaid) is an engineer for
SeaWorld, whereas in
Jaws: The Revenge, he is a marine research scientist. One of the Universal press releases for
Jaws: The Revenge refers to this fourth film in the series as the "third film of the remarkable
Jaws trilogy." de Guzman's script featured an appearance by Matt Hooper, while the producers still hoped to recruit
Richard Dreyfuss to reprise his role as Hooper for the project. It was proposed that Martin Brody was to be the shark's first victim. Gary is the only principal cast member from the original film who returned. Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss refused to participate. Scheider had other commitments, and also had clearly expressed a desire not to play the character again.
Lee Fierro made a brief cameo as Mrs. Kintner, the mother of Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees) who was killed in
Jaws, 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 Amity Mayor Larry Vaughan, in the first two
Jaws films. Gary states that one of the reasons she was attracted to the film was the idea of an on-screen romance with future
Academy Award winner
Michael Caine. The first day we were to work together I was nervous as a schoolgirl. We were shooting a
Junkanoo Festival 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. 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 elder son Mike. Guest had dropped out of his sophomore year at
UCLA (1981) to appear in another sequel to a horror classic;
Halloween II.
Karen Young played his wife Carla. She commended the director's emphasis upon characterization.
Mitchell Anderson appeared as Ellen's youngest son, Sean.
Lynn Whitfield played Louisa, and stunt performer Diane Hetfield played Mrs. Ferguson, the victim of the banana boat attack. 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. 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." Cinematographer
John McPherson recalls that filming in the Vineyard was very cold, and required seven generators and lots of equipment. He says the six-day shoot covered 22 pages of the script. 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 underwater sequences were coordinated from an boat called
Moby II. Second unit director Jordan Klein says that it was initially challenging for the actors to get used to the "foreign environment" of performing underwater. Stunt performer Gavin McKinney stood in for Lance Guest in the scene with the
moray eel because it was potentially dangerous. Principal photography completed in Nassau on May 26, although the special effects team continued working until June 4. Production then moved to the two sets which had been constructed at
Universal Studios for the Neptune's Folly sequences, and also some reshoots of Sean's death. A tank had been painted to replicate Nassau's seabed, and a huge backdrop was painted to look like the Bahamas sky. However, as John McPherson points out, the backdrop looked rather artificial, which the production had no remaining time to resolve. The film was shot in the
Super 35 format, with
Arriflex cameras equipped with
Zeiss Superspeed lenses for 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." While the sharks for the first two
Jaws films were
pneumatically operated, the larger shark used in
Revenge and more precise movements led to a decision to power this shark
hydraulically. According to
Hydraulics & Pneumatics magazine, "the articulated shark was mounted on top of a hydraulically operated
scissor lift ... which raised and lowered the shark so it would appear that he had surfaced or submerged." The carriage was capable of propelling "the shark through the water at speeds to 7
knots]" (). Seven sharks, or segments, were constructed from a combination of fibreglass, a metal frame and latex skin. The models were operated from a platform capable of rotating 180 degrees underwater, with a hydraulic arm operating the sharks. Instead, Ted Rae, who had worked on
Jaws 3-D, was commissioned to create a stop-motion shark for
Jaws: The Revenge. When designing and sculpturing the models, Rae tried to strike a balance between matching the full-scale sharks built by Millar, and the live action footage. Rae criticized the full-scale models, saying they "looked like a concrete log with teeth... and doesn't look as good as the shark in the first film." The film company returned to Universal to finish shooting on April 2. Adverse weather conditions and problems with the mechanical sharks meant that the product was delayed and exceeded its $23 million budget. Despite this, the production was hurried in order to meet the July 1987 release date. A television documentary,
Behind the Scenes with Jaws: The Revenge, was broadcast in the U.S. 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 of the original US theatrical version, Ellen rammed Neptune's Folly into the shark, impaling it on the prow of the 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. American audiences disapproved of this ending. Sid Sheinberg says that the impact of the shark and Jake dying "was too much for the audience in one finale". Following this, additional footage was filmed to portray Jake's survival, and special effects shots using miniatures which, Downey says, "saw the shark inexplicably explode after being speared by the boat". Universal used this ending on home media releases. The re-shot ending reportedly began filming only five days after the film was released in the United States. The original ending can be seen on cable broadcasts. Re-shooting the ending prevented Michael Caine from collecting his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for
Hannah and Her Sisters in person. In a 2010 interview with
Time.com, Caine said that he had asked Universal to reschedule filming, but it was not possible due to the logistics of all of the boats and equipment that was involved. ==Music==