12 Movie Scenes You Didn’t Know Were Reshoots
6. The Decomposing Head - Jaws
As mentioned earlier in this article, Steven Spielberg is always listening to what his audiences have to say about his movies, and more often than not uses their advice to make his work better and more timeless. He did it with E.T, but before that, he also did the same thing with his most famous movie: Jaws.
After preview screenings, Spielberg noted that audiences were not reacting as he had hoped they would, having wanted them to literally scream when Matt Hooper found a decomposed head.
Spielberg decided he was going to reshoot the scene using his own money, and brought his film crew to a swimming pool that was owned by his editor, Verna Field. They ended up filling the pool with milk to give it a seawater effect, and reshot the whole thing.
Many years after the production of the movie, Spielberg noted that he was suffering from a sort of PTSD, and would often drive into the Universal backlot and spend hours alone in the film famous boat, The Orca. One day whilst on a studio tour, Spielberg went to return to his hideout to find that it had been scrapped by the studio and no longer existed.