20 Things You Didn't Know About Jaws 3D
19. It Was Going To Be A Spoof
Jaws 2, directed by Jeannot Szwarc, is a serviceable follow-up if one's expectations are adjusted accordingly. It plays out more like a slasher film than an action-horror ride, with cookie-cutter teen archetypes picked off one by one by the malicious fish.
But two films in, producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck were out of ideas. And that Mel Brooks guy seemed to be doing well. So Brown and Zanuck approached Matty Simmons, who was writing high off the success of National Lampoon's Animal House to create "Jaws 3, People 0". Simmons wrote a brief outline and brought it to National Lampoon-alum John Hughes, but ultimately the idea was rejected. Brown considered it "fouling in your own nest", something he would come to regret.
"We should have fouled the nest. It would have been golden," said Brown. "Maybe even platinum."
And thus, one imagines, begat Sharknado.