20 Things You Didn't Know About Jaws 3D

When Joe Dante's first major release came out in 1978, he was almost sued by Universal Studios. The Gremlins director was hired by Roger Corman to direct Piranha, a send-up of the killer fish craze of the late 70s scripted by playwright John Sayles. Then Spielberg saw a screening of the film and walked out enthusiastic, telling Uni versal to drop the suit and later rewarding Dante with Gremlins.

So he would have approved of Brown and Zanuck's first choice for their own Jaws spoof. Not much is known how far they pursued Dante, but he was at least briefly in the running to direct.