Just as his career was taking off, Steven Spielberg used Jaws to pay tribute to an iconic movie hero. Steven Spielberg’s movies have always demonstrated that he’s a master of cinematic spectacle, and it’s often easy to spot some of his biggest influences. From old Westerns to more modern blockbusters, Spielberg draws from a wide array of different styles. One needs only to look at his recent movies, like The Fabelmans, Ready Player One and West Side Story, to see how his love of cinema has shaped his own work over the years.
Jaws cemented Spielberg’s status as a director worth watching, and it helped shape the idea of the summer blockbuster as we know it today. It’s the kind of horror movie that can appeal to anyone, no matter how much they care for the genre, but it works so well because it executes the basics well. While the scenes in the water are breathtaking, the dynamic between the main characters means that Jaws is just as compelling in its more quiet moments. This intelligent balance set the agenda for many of Spielberg’s crowdpleasing blockbusters, so it’s nice to see that it includes a nod to one of the director’s biggest influences.
Jaws Features A License Plate Referencing James Bond
Jaws Pays Tribute To Live And Let Die
The people of Amity Island take to the sea in droves when a reward is offered for the person who can successfully kill the shark, but this frenzy of fishermen comes up short. The locals do manage to pull one shark out of the water, but Hooper is skeptical that it’s the maneater that they’re looking for. He and Brody perform a crude autopsy on the shark to find the truth, but they empty the contents of its stomach without finding any human remains. Instead, they find some half-eaten fish and some garbage, including a license plate which refers to the James Bond franchise.
Although Jaws‘ Amity Island is located in New England or New York, the license plate comes from Louisiana, with the number 73 on it to suggest a connection to Live and Let Die, the Bond movie set primarily in Louisiana that was released in 1973. The clearest indication that this is an Easter egg alluding to James Bond is the license plate number itself, which contains the sequence 007. Since Spielberg has been open about his admiration for the James Bond movies, this seems like too big of a coincidence.
The Easter Egg Was Likely Put There Because Spielberg Wanted To Work On A Bond Film
Spielberg Even Contacted Roger Moore To Help Land Him His Dream Job
Spielberg once dreamed of making his own James Bond movie, so his Jaws Easter egg might have been a subtle nod to the famous Bond producer Cubby Broccoli. In a 2011 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Spielberg said “When I first started making movies, the only franchise I cared about and wanted to be part of was James Bond.” Of course, he never landed this job. He was rejected by Broccoli after Jaws, as well as a few years later after the success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg got in touch with Roger Moore to help him sweet-talk Broccoli, but to no avail.
The James Bond franchise introduced a character named Jaws in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me, and an early draft of the script had him being fed to a shark.
Once Spielberg finally accepted that he was never going to be given the opportunity to make his own Bond movie, he did the next best thing, creating another huge action adventure franchise. His Indiana Jones franchise got off to a roaring start in the 1980s, as the Bond movies went through a period of critical disappointment. Indiana Jones fans might know that The Temple of Doom contains another 007 Easter egg, as Indy wears a white tuxedo in the first scene that looks just like the one Sean Connery can be seen wearing in 1962’s Dr. No.
Steven Spielberg has continually proved that he can strike box-office gold, and his movies have launched some major franchises. Perhaps it was foolish of the Bond franchise to turn him down all those years ago. Spielberg has made enough great action movies, and a couple of spy thrillers, to suggest that he may have moved on from his dream of directing 007. However, Amazon’s takeover means that the future of the James Bond franchise is hard to predict. It looked all but impossible a few years ago, but if Spielberg was ever going to get to take the reins for a Bond movie, now could be the time.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
