10 Movies That Abandoned The Source Material (For The Better)
9. Jaws
When reading Jaws the book, you might be wondering what it's doing here. Indeed, much of the book and film are similar, but as anyone who makes it past the first few chapters will tell you, there is a TON the film leaves out.
This isn't totally surprising, as film adaptations do that all the time.
Ask any Harry Potter fan (if you can find them these days) what part of the books the films were right to cut out, and the ensuing argument will kick off world war 3. But Jaws cuts out entire sub-plots, entire parts of the main plot, and basically everything that isn't "shark eats people, grizzled old guys go kill, the end".
They even change the ending, from Jaws sinking to the bottom of the ocean after getting stabbed with ALL of the harpoons, to him blowing the hell up.
The basic meat of the story is there, but like its eponymous antagonist, Jaws took that meat, chewed it up, and only ate the bits it wanted. And it's one of the best blockbuster films of all time as a result.