Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a bit of a speculation story, but one I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get some thoughts down on.
I noticed a story over at Bloody-Disgusting pointing to an LA Times profile piece on Richard Zanuck where he says a few interesting things, most notably about being "intrigued" about the possibility of adding 3-D effects to Jaws, the assumption being for a potential 3-D re-release.
Now, being the resident Jaws fanatic and the guy that's still wishy-washy on 3-D as anything more than a gimmick, it might surprise you that I don't immediately hate this idea. Of course I'd prefer it if they remastered the original negative, cleaned it up, made the highest possible resolution scan of it and struck new prints or at the very least sent it out to digital theaters in a limited re-release.
This summer marks the 35th anniversary of the release of the film. Can you imagine if they did a 2000 screen re-release with a big marketing push? Look at how successful Star Wars and The Exorcist were in their '90s re-releases. I realize they had "new versions" to pimp, but I think that blinds the studio bosses to what the real draw with those films was: to see these classic films looking their best with an audience.
Jaws has earned Universal so much money that I'm sure they could pull together something special.
Realistically I doubt that'd happen, but I can see their desire to do a push if there was a 3-D conversion.
Before we dive into that barrel of monkeys let's get one thing straight: Clash of the Titans' 3-D conversion was rushed, done in around 2 months. That's the worst a 3-D conversion can look... then look at the 3-D conversion of A NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS to see 3-D conversion at its best.
I've also been privileged enough to have seen Cameron's coveted test reel of scenes from the original Star Wars films and LOTR in 3-D and they looked pretty great.
If enough attention to detail and money is put into the process I could get behind it as a "special theatrical exhibition" treat in theory.
In fact, I'd much prefer it to these spruced up Special Editions that always seem to fix everything that ain't broken to begin with. In the same LA Times article, Zanuck talks about discussions between himself and Spielberg about sprucing up Bruce with the CG brush and that, frankly, scares the shit out of me. (Thankfully they've set that idea aside... for the time being.)
In Zanuck's own words:
"In desperation, we came up with so many good ideas -- like the floating barrels, for instance, that were shown on the screen to suggest this shark beneath them, underwater -- and we did it because we didn't have the shark," Zanuck said. "In the script, the shark is on Page 1 when the girl gets eaten. It became more terrorizing than anything we could have hoped for. If we had CG then we would have had the shark in every frame."
People, go back and watch the original Jaws. There are maybe one or two shots of Bruce where you can see the effect a bit, but the shark effects have aged extremely well. Don't confuse the original with the sequels. The shark in Jaws: The Revenge is the one that looks like the Universal Studios tram tour, not the original.
From what I've seen, I'm not too enraged of the possibility of a resurrection of re-releases in 3-D, but that doesn't mean it's ideal. If it were up to me, I'd say restore and re-release with zero editorial changes and a nice advertising push. It's a Hollywood tradition that doesn't exist anymore on any major level and one that would surely pay off. Especially these big, iconic event pictures, like Jaws.
In this day and age where digital projection is becoming more and more common place and the cost of a re-release is diminished significantly I can't imagine this isn't being discussed at all at the executive level.
Looking at the Zanuck quote, it seems to be a very throw-away thought, so I think it's a safe bet we won't see a Jaws (in) 3-D rerelease (maybe a Jaws 3-D re-release, though. That'd be awesome... shitty movie, fake-ass shark, but I still have fond memories of that 3-D experience as a kid), but I'd love it if this somehow spurned a discussion that got a real deal theatrical re-release of the original Jaws off the ground. Maybe even in time for a Summer re-release... Get people out of the oceans again!
By the way, I saw a beat up print of Jaws play to a theater of about 200 people a couple years back and it got screams from the audience. Still. (Yes, it was the Ben Gardner head scene). Universal, the flick still has that power after all these years. Just sayin'.
What are your thoughts on all this?
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
