10 Films Whose Novelisations Took On A Life Of Their Own
3. Orca
The success of the first blockbuster naturally sparked a wave of imitators; killer fish of all species were striking back at unsuspecting swimmers and greedy polluters.
Piranhas, Gill Men, Barracudas, Bull Sharks, Crocodiles, Alligators - anything even tangentially related to the water were pissed off, but mostly that the Great White had taken the limelight.
Enter Orca, Paramount and Dino De Laurentiis' response to Jaws and everything that Blackfish isn't. Richard Harris plays the film's Quint-clone, a whaling fisherman who captures and kills a baby Orca only to suffer its father's rage.
Orca is an interesting miss from De Laurentiis, who wasn't a stranger to watching the most recent hit and calling his roster of filmmaker's at midnight to say, "Like that, but bigger." His bravado eccentric persona was perfectly sent up by John Belushi in an early SNL sketch.But sadly, Orca's pacing moves like the iceberg on which it climaxes. The novelisation, by Arthur Herzog, is the precise opposite; a fast-moving chase across the ocean with all the pulpy viscera (like Bo Derek's leg) included. Given that it isn't hampered by an awkward melodramatic subplot involving city corruption, it could be argued Herzog's book is better than Jaws.