The 25 foot long animatronic Great White Shark……affectionately called “Bruce” by the crew in “Jaws”/1975…….was a temperamental beast.
“Bruce” terrorizes the waters outside a Massachusetts beach town, but, behind the scenes “Bruce” turned out to be very difficult to work with.
Malfunctioning parts, costly repairs to the mechanical beast resulted in many extra days & takes.
Due to issues with “Bruce”, “Jaws” ended up costing twice its expected budget.
“Jaws”, budgeted at $8 million, wound up costing $15 million. The movie grossed $475 million worldwide.
The biggest summer blockbuster of its day. The film turned out to be a career maker for Spielberg, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider.
All the angst is a just footnote today. A blip on the sonar.