10 Movie Posters That Led To Massive Lawsuits
8. Jaws - Publishers Go To War Over Movie Poster
When it comes to memorable movie posters, few entries comes close to the iconic image of a great white shark sizing up its splashing prey used for Steven Spielberg's 1975 masterpiece.
Yet, deciding upon this image in the first place wasn't exactly a straight forward issue. Though Roger Kastel would hold the claim to being the person responsible for the image that would later take the world by storm, as he was for The Empire Strikes Back's legendary poster too, this visual actually had its origins elsewhere.
When the novel was originally released in 1974 by Doubleday, Paul Bacon produced a black and white (and fairly bland) cover of a shark staring up at a woman swimming against a plain black background.
Feeling as though Doubleday's image was a vital part of the creation of the Bantam paperback cover and eventual film poster designed by Kastel, the two publishing companies found themselves going to court over the issue.
Ultimately, this lawsuit led to the people involved with Doubleday's original cover all getting "decent-sized checks" for their early work on such an unmistakable piece of art.