{"id":2024668,"date":"2025-09-15T23:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2024668"},"modified":"2025-09-15T23:02:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:02:00","slug":"jaws-exhibition-opens-at-academy-museum-a-blockbuster-tribute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/jaws-exhibition-opens-at-academy-museum-a-blockbuster-tribute\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaws Exhibition Opens at Academy Museum: A Blockbuster Tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

The summer blockbuster film \u201cchanged popular culture in ways that are still reverberating today\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols<\/span><\/figure>\n

When it was released in the summer of 1975, Jaws<\/em> established the new norm of what a blockbuster movie should be, and fifty years later, it remains a cultural touchstone across generations of moviegoers. Steven Spielberg\u2019s shark-infested classic is the subject of a massive new exhibition newly opened at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Jaws: The Exhibition is \u201cThe first large-scale exhibition dedicated to a single motion picture,\u201d museum president Amy Homma said at a preview. \u201cJaws<\/em> is the summer blockbuster that changed popular culture in ways that are still reverberating today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols<\/span><\/figure>\n
\"\"Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols<\/span><\/figure>\n

While some disaster movies like The Towering Inferno<\/em> and Earthquake<\/em> had made waves, the previous year\u2019s crop of films saw family comedies like Benji<\/em>, Herbie Rides Again<\/em> and Young Frankenstein<\/em> topping the charts. Mel Brooks\u2019 Blazing Saddles<\/em> was the highest-grossing movie of 1974. Jaws <\/em>was a whole new kind of cinematic experience, only to be topped by Star Wars<\/em> a couple of years later. Today, studios count on their summer tentpoles to drive much of the year\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols<\/span><\/figure>\n
\"\"Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols<\/span><\/figure>\n

The star of the new exhibition was already waiting in the wings of the museum. The 25\u2019 fiberglass shark hanging above the entrance, the largest single object in the museum\u2019s collection, was saved from a junkyard and restored in 2021. The extraordinary display of artifacts includes iconic elements from the movie, including sections of the Orca boat, the costumes Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw and Roy Scheider wore and the shark\u2019s dorsal fin with the rig that allowed it to swim into frame, terrifying audiences whenever it appeared onscreen. The big shark, Homma says, has become the \u201cmascot\u201d of the museum.<\/p>\n

Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols<\/span><\/figure>\n

Visitors can use a rig to recreate the famous dolly zoom shot of Chief Brody on the beach, learn notes from the iconic John Williams score on the keyboard, and even try their hand at piloting a miniature of the mechanical shark.<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols<\/span><\/figure>\n

The props and costumes in the show, which runs through next July, were sourced from the archives of collectors all over the world who \u201cknew something I didn\u2019t know,\u201d Steven Spielberg said at the museum. \u201cWhen we shot the opening scene of Chrissie Watkins being taken by the shark, we had a buoy floating in the water. How did anybody know to take the buoy and take it home and sit on it for fifty years? And then loan it to the Academy. How could they know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols<\/span><\/figure>\n

Spielberg recalled the travails of filming on the open water of the Atlantic Ocean with a finicky mechanical shark. \u201cIt was a real exercise in hubris and futility. I thought my career was virtually over halfway through production,\u201d the legendary director said. \u201cEverbody was saying to me \u2018you are never going to get hired again. This film is way over budget and way over schedule and you are a real liability as a director.\u2019 I thought I\u2019d better give this my all because I\u2019m not working in the industry again after they see the movie. Fortune smiled on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols<\/span><\/figure>\n