The Jaws: The Revenge Novelization Is Even Crazier Than the Film

Jaws: The Revenge is often cited as one of the worst movies ever made. The movie is so bad that, along with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Batman & Robin, it makes a compelling case that all franchises should stop after the third movie. A large part of why Jaws: The Revenge fails as a movie is the filmmakers’ bizarre decision to make the shark’s vendetta against the Brody family personal. But as weird as it is for the film to give its shark enough sense to hold a grudge, the Jaws: The Revenge novelization proves to be even crazier.

Both the movie and book versions of Jaws: The Revenge revolve around a new shark finding its way to Amity Island, murdering one of Chief Brody’s sons, and then traveling from New England to the Bahamas to go after the other one. Where they differ, however, is that the shark in the movie is seemingly motivated by its own burning hatred of the Brody family, whereas the shark in the book is merely a tool for voodoo practitioner Papa Jacques to get revenge on the elder Brody child.

The Crazy Jaws: The Revenge Novelization Was Based on an Early Script

Like most novelizations, Jaws: The Revenge is based on an early screenplay, meaning that Papa Jacques was initially intended to appear in the movie as well. At some point during production, all traces of the voodoo revenge subplot were scrubbed from Jaws: The Revenge, in favor of leaving the shark’s motive ambiguous. Whether including Papa Jaques would have improved or hurt the film is up for debate, but it definitely would have made the movie more interesting.

In the book, Papa Jacques is a resident of the same tropical island community as Michael Brody, now a marine biologist. Brody accuses Jaques of being a charlatan and taking advantage of the gullible island residents, prompting the voodoo priest to call upon a great white shark to help him get revenge on Brody and his family. Jacques becomes so linked to the shark that when Ellen Brody impales it with the bow of a ship, he dies, too.

If that’s not weird enough, the book reveals that the shark in question is the son of the shark from the original Jaws. We wish we were making that up. The shark having a familial connection to the original is most likely the result of Hank Searls writing the novelization, rather than something that originated from an earlier draft of the script.

Searls was also the author of the Jaws 2 novelization, where he made the interesting choice to have the second shark be the pregnant mate of the original. In that context, it’s not surprising that he would make her grown child the antagonist of Jaws: The Revenge. While it may not be surprising, it does feel a little like overkill. Having a voodoo priest controlling the shark is already a hard pill to swallow, but making that particular shark also have a vendetta against the Brodys is really pushing it.

Voodoo Isn’t the Only Thing Separating the Book From the Movie

The voodoo subplot isn’t the only difference between the book of Jaws: The Revenge and the movie. The book also changes Michael Caine’s Hoagie Newcombe from a happy-go-lucky charter pilot to a secret DEA agent working to take down a drug kingpin responsible for his daughter’s cocaine overdose years earlier. Maybe if the movie had swung for the fences like the book, it would have been an entertaining trainwreck instead of just a trainwreck.

One thing the two versions of The Revenge have in common is that they both ignore the events of Jaws 3-D, though how this plays out also differs between media. In the book, Searls makes several references to his Jaws 2 novelization, presenting Jaws: The Revenge as the true third chapter in the Brody family saga. The movie, meanwhile, seemingly ignores both sequels, choosing instead to only reference the original. This inadvertently leads to one of the movie’s most embarrassing gaffes, where Ellen Brody has flashbacks to scenes in Jaws she wasn’t present for. Oops.

As it stands, everything that could have made Jaws: The Revenge interesting is relegated to the novelization, leaving the film free to wallow in its mediocrity. While we don’t necessarily think that including all the excised subplots would have made the movie better, it definitely couldn’t have made it worse. If you can track it down, the novelization of Jaws: The Revenge is worth checking out. It’s a fun, easy read that won’t rock your world but won’t bore you to tears either. Too bad we can’t say the same for the movie.

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