7. Dick Richards Almost Directed Jaws
Dick Richards. You know. Dick
Richards. You know? You don't know? Dick Richards? The more you say Dick Richards, the less you know who Dick Richards actually is, but this man was almost assigned the job of directing
Jaws over our man Steven Spielberg. Yes, Richards - a producer on movies like
Tootsie - was first in line for adapting Peter Benchley's pulpy novel about a shark that terrorises a holiday island. Luckily he was fired from the gig for incompetence.
Would It Have Been Any Good? Having Richards direct
Jaws would've likely been one of the biggest mistakes in the history of cinema. Firstly, Richards kept referring to the shark as a "marine mammal" and intended to play down the shark's blood-thirsty temper. Secondly, Richards called the shark a "whale" in his treatment, like, a dozen times. That's the reason they got rid of him - because he didn't seem to know the shark was a shark. So, um, Dick Richards
'Jaws would have probably sucked. A lot.