Jaws 2 would have been a much different movie, had the sequel’s original plan been followed. Universal was indeed hungry for a follow-up to Jaws after the 1975 film’s legendary box office run saw it gobble up $260 million domestically ($1.1 billion adjusted for inflation). So eager was the studio for another blockbuster that they spent a reported $20 million on their Jaws sequel, making it the most expensive film in Universal’s history at that time.

Set once again on the shark-terrorized Amity Island, Jaws 2 would bring back just one of the three main protagonists of the original, Roy Scheider’s Brody, but not director Steven Spielberg, who had no interest in doing another shark movie. History records the first Jaws sequel as having been widely panned by critics, but somewhat embraced by audiences, pushing it to a respectable $77 million domestic gross. Things may have turned out otherwise, however, had Universal gone forward with producers’ early sequel plans.

Jaws 2 Was Initially Going To Be Much Darker

The First Script Was Pretty Wild

With Spielberg over doing shark movies, Universal moved on to John D. Hancock, who’d gotten good reviews for directing the 1973 baseball weepie Bang the Drum Slowly. To write the script, Hancock teamed up with his own wife Dorothy Tristan, the two hammering out a draft that revisited Amity Island in the aftermath of the original movie’s shark mayhem.

Hancock and Tristan’s script imagined Chief Brody dealing with PTSD after narrowly surviving his ordeal at sea in the first film. It also conjured a connection to Robert Shaw’s crusty sea captain Quint in Sideburns, Quint’s own salty son, who comes to Amity to collect his ᴅᴇᴀᴅ father’s reward money. Interestingly, Sideburns does not become a protagonist alongside Brody. Instead, the chief is joined by a businessman named Boyle, who buys Quint’s shack with the dubious intention of exploiting its infamy to attract tourists, and a developer named Len Petersen, who has shady plans for an emotionally and economically depressed Amity.

Much as in the version of Jaws 2 that was eventually released, Hancock and Tristan’s draft sees a group of kids, including Brody’s son Mike, getting attacked by a shark while sailing around Amity. For some reason, the shark is pregnant this time, and about to give birth. It develops that Brody, Boyle, and Petersen must team up to eliminate the shark threat. Boyle ends up being killed by the monster before Brody and Petersen are able to end its reign of terror by chopping it up with their boat’s propeller.

Why The Jaws 2 Plans Were Changed

Universal Wanted A Lighter Take On Sharks Attacking Teens

Hancock made it through the Jaws 2 pre-production process and into actual shooting before being fired over creative differences (a few of his sH๏τs did make it into the final film). According to those in the know, the studio had become concerned that Hancock’s vision for Jaws 2 was straying too far from the original, and that it was becoming too dark. Hancock, for his part, claimed he was fired over his inability to handle so big a production, blaming a lot of his troubles on a malfunctioning mechanical shark.

Universal’s new plans saw Jaws co-writer Carl Gottlieb coming on to add humor to the script. After a brief flirtation with Spielberg, they tapped relatively unknown Jeannot Szwarc to direct. The finished film retained the endangered-teens storyline from Hancock and Tristan’s draft but saw Brody going solo as a shark-killer while writing out Boyle entirely, and reducing Petersen to a side character. Sideburns also went by the wayside, as did an organized crime subplot.

Would This Have Been The Best Jaws Sequel?

It’s Not A Loaded Field

Jaws 2 as made is widely regarded as a solid-but-undistinguished sequel. Had Universal stuck with Hancock and Tristan’s script, moviegoers would’ve been treated to a darker film, and perhaps a more memorable one. It’s also possible that, given the difficulties Hancock was having with the mechanical shark and other production issues, his darker Jaws 2 would have turned out disastrous.

But even a flat-out catastrophic Jaws 2 might still be in the running for the best sequel in the series. The third movie, Jaws 3-D, was originally to have been a send-up enтιтled Jaws 3, People 0, but turned out to be a mostly serious horror movie about a shark terrorizing an amusement park where Chief Brody’s son Mike (played now by Dennis Quaid) happens to work. The Brody family continues to have severe shark problems in 1987’s Jaws: The Revenge, the last film in the series, and a frequently-cited contender for the worst film ever made.

By box office gross and critical consensus, Jaws 2 is already the best Jaws sequel, but an argument can perhaps be made for Jaws 3-D, which at least tried out a new setting, and is weird enough to almost be fun. The version of Jaws 2 the world never saw would presumably have been darker and with characters like Quint’s son, a little quirkier. It was never going to be as good or as successful as Jaws, but perhaps it would have carved out its own unique space in the world, and been more than just a competently-made retread.

Source: Collider, Game Rant, EW