10 Films Whose Novelisations Took On A Life Of Their Own
9. Jaws: The Revenge
You'd have a hard time finding a list of worst films of all time that didn't include Jaws: The Revenge. Its nonsensical plot finds the Brody family (minus Roy Scheider, who refused to appear) hunted by a shark seemingly hellbent on revenge.
For what? It's never clear. It had been implied that a shark was supernaturally drawn to Martin Brody in Jaws 2, but it was never meant seriously.
The shark, as Richard Dreyfuss put it, is just a machine. "All it does is swims, and eats, and makes little sharks and that's it."
So one can imagine the kind of workload Universal dumped on author Hank Searls, who had previously handled Jaws 2's novelization. Not only did he have to justify the shark suddenly having emotions, there were a series of plot holes that needed gapping.
The shark's motive was thankfully in the original script, apparently summoned to the Bahamas by a local witch doctor who has a beef with the Brody family.
Other plot issues, such as the fate of Mario Van Peebles' comic relief, would also be resolved (in the TV version, he lives, while theatrically and in the book he died).
More importantly, the book explains what the hell Michael Caine's pilot was up to. Turns out the "I deliver laundry" line in the film meant he was an undercover DEA agent out to avenge his daughter's O.D.
This all said, novel still doesn't explain how Caine, after landing in water, returns to the boat completely dry.