Steven Spielberg’s Jaws returns to the surface to strike terror into audiences once again becoming the focus of a new exhibition at the Academy Museum as part of the film’s 50th anniversary, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Adapted from the novel by Peter Benchley and starring Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw, Jaws follows the efforts of a timid police chief, a marine biologist, and an expert fisherman to take down a killer shark when it begins terrorizing the residents of a small New England island.
Despite its notoriously arduous production, Jaws was released on June 20, 1975, to monstrous success. It grossed $273.6 million domestically and nearly $210.7 million internationally for a worldwide box office tally of $484.3 million, at the time, the highest-grossing film in the world. Jaws launched Spielberg’s career and Hollywood itself into the blockbuster era. Given its impact, it’s no surprise what the Academy Museum has in store for it.
Jaws: The Exhibition, the first exhibit centered around an individual film, will be curated using multiple sources with full access, such as The Amblin Hearth Archive, NBCUniversal Archives & Collections, and Spielberg’s personal collection. The pieces range from concept drawings to costumes, mechanical shark schematics, and a prop dorsal fin that appears in the film.
A full-scale model of “Bruce The Shark,” the mechanical beast used during the film’s production, has been hanging above the Museum’s fourth floor since its opening in 2021.
Exhibitions curator Jenny He and assistant curator Emily Rauber Rodriguez will organize the exhibit, which will include a series of film screenings, new merchandise, and public programs. More details will follow later.
Jaws: The Exhibition will be open to the public from Sept. 14, 2025, to July 26, 2026.
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