Trivia / Jaws 2

• B-Team Sequel: The studio asked Steven Spielberg to return to the director's chair, but he was completely against the idea of a sequel. He did start to warm up to the idea later, but by then, he had another movie on his plate, as did Richard Dreyfuss. The replacement director, Jeannot Szwarc, was a prolific television director, which explains the flatness of the film.
• California Doubling: Due to difficulties with weather and environment, most of the movie was filmed in and around Fort Walton Beach, FL, in the Northwest Panhandle. Many ocean scenes were shot in the Choctawhatchee Bay. "Cable Junction" was actually a floating set constructed for the film and kept docked at the Shalimar Yacht Basin when not needed and could be seen from the Garniers Bayou Bridge with its faux beacon flashing at night. Interior shots of the teen hangout where they play pinball were filmed in the original location of the Hog's Breath Saloon on Okaloosa Island. This business relocated to a new facility in Destin, FL, in recent years after the first site proved susceptible to hurricane damage. The original building was still vacant and derelict as of January 2005.
• Contractual Obligation Project: Roy Scheider did not originally want to appear in the film, but had recently left the production of The Deer Hunter, which led to conflicts with Universal Pictures to whom he was locked into a multi-film contract with. The studio agreed to forgive his leaving The Deer Hunter if he did Jaws 2, which they would count as the two remaining films of his contract with them. Scheider agreed to the terms, but was resentful of his involvement from the onset and clashed frequently with director Jeannot Szwarc.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Roy Scheider referred to the film as "lousy", in part due to making everybody else's life a misery during production as he didn't want to do the film. Years after, his attitude mellowed towards the film.
  • A few months before his death, Robert Shaw had the chance to see this movie at a private screening. His reaction was, "I'm glad I did not intervene in this piece of shit".
• Dawson Casting: Done with the teenagers.
• Deleted Scene: A deleted scene shows the town council voting to fire Sheriff Brody, Mayor Vaughn is the only one to vote against firing him. There's another one depicting the police retrieving the camera of the unfortunate divers killed in the opening sequence.
• Enforced Method Acting: Marc Gilpin (Sean Brody) claims that when they were shooting one of the scenes on the makeshift raft of wrecked yachts, they were being circled by a real hammerhead shark. All the actors were scared and began to scream and holler at the production crew who were filming that particular scene from a distance. The crew were oblivious to the danger and assumed the actors were simply 'in character' and gave them the thumbs up!
• Hostility on the Set: Jeannot Szwarc and Roy Scheider did not get along, so producer David Brown asked them both to air their differences, but it resulted in a physical confrontation. It ended with the director's promise that he would spend as much time directing the star as the child actors.
• The Merch: The film inspired much more merchandising and sponsors than the first film. Products included sets of trading cards from Topps and Baker's bread, paper cups from Coca-Cola, beach towels, a souvenir program, shark tooth necklaces, coloring and activity books and a model kit of Brody's truck.
• Money, Dear Boy: Roy Scheider's main reason for agreeing to appear in this film, along with clearing a contract dispute with the studio.
• The Other Marty:
  • Dana Elcar was originally cast in the role of Len Peterson, which was much darker than it eventually became. When Jeannot Szwarc took over the film and turned the character into a potential love interest for Ellen Brody, Elcar was let go and replaced with Joseph Mascolo, who had worked previously with Szwarc.
  • Tegan West and Ricky Schroder were hired by John D. Hancock for the roles of Michael and Sean Brody, respectively. After a month of shooting, Hancock was replaced by Szwarc. The new director, who had to start all over again, replaced the two actors with Mark Gruner and Marc Gilpin.
• Prop Recycling: On the Brodys' front porch is a flower planter painted bright yellow. It is one of the barrels from the first film.
• Recycled Script: The plot is largely a retread of the first film's, with the addition of a group of teenagers.
• Throw It In!: David Elliott (who played Larry Vaughn, Jr.) claims to have improvised the line "She has tits like a sparrow." He said Donna Wilkes (Jackie) graciously forgave him for it, but he later remarked "I wish those words never left my mouth."
• Troubled Production: Compared to the first film, production was only less troubled by comparison:
  • Steven Spielberg refused to return, at first because he was completely against the idea, and later because he (along with Richard Dreyfuss) was busy with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. John D. Hancock was hired as director, but Universal executives disliked his character-driven take on the film and the slow pace of filming. One month in, Hancock was fired and production shut down for weeks while a new director could be found and the script could be rewritten. The obvious choices for director were blocked by the Director's Guild of America due to their rules regarding promoting crew members to director^note the studio considered promoting second unit director Joe Alves to full director, but this violated the DGA's newly-enacted "Eastwood Rule", made after Clint Eastwood fired and replaced a DGA director with himself while starring in The Outlaw Josey Wales. Verna Fields, the first film's editor, also fell afoul of another DGA requirement where the replacement has to be a full DGA member with at least one film or TV directorial credit. They eventually settled on Jeannot Szwarc.
  • With the Chief Brody character returning through rewrites, Roy Scheider was reprised the role. He had recently backed out of a role in The Deer Hunter at the last second due to Creative Differences, putting him in a contract dispute with Universal. He bitterly fought against being cast in Jaws 2; His biographer claimed he even tried to plead insanity by trashing a Beverly Hills hotel room, but ultimately agreed to the film when Universal offered a $500.000 paycheck^note four times his base salary from the first film and to count Jaws 2 as his final contractual obligation to the studio.
  • Nevertheless, Scheider's distaste for the film led to a tense shoot. He got into heated arguments with Szwarc, claiming that Szwarc was spending more time directing the child actors and effects than the leads, and he threatened to walk out of the film multiple times. Things became so sour between the two that Producer David Brown and Verna Fields tried to get them to air out their differences privately, only for a fistfight between Scheider and Szwarc to break out.
  • And the film ran into many of the same troubles the first one had with the mechanical sharks frequently breaking down. And there were protests by locals that forced the production to move from Martha's Vineyard to Florida. And there was the rough weather and winds that regularly held up filming. And while filming the finale, the actors found themselves menaced by real sharks. The final budget was $30 million, more than three times that of the first film. It still made a tidy profit.
• What Could Have Been: Takes a bite out of a page here.

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