Peter Benchley

Murray Hamilton.

Based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel Jaws.

And man, the trailer alone.

There is a creature alive today who has survived millions of years of evolution.

Lorraine Gray.

Murray Hamilton.

Based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel Jaws.

And man, the trailer alone.

So Jaws 1975.

Peter Benchley, based on his bestselling novel on the 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks.

Over 12 days in July 1916, five people were attacked, four fatally along ocean beaches and inland tidal creeks, triggering widespread public panic and armed hunting parties.

and town beach uh town beach closures that mirrored the plot of amity island i did not know that jaws was based off of a real story but

Yeah, there's a lot of history here.

Also, did you know who was from Stonington? Who? Peter Benchley.

He's the author of the book Jaws.

Oh.

The Bermuda Triangle sold just south of 20 million copies and was translated into more than 30 languages.

That put it almost neck and neck with Peter Benchley's Jaws, which was released the same year, and which also seems like an interesting book, sociologically speaking, to take on vacation.

It's rare that we can so clearly observe how an idea is born, grown, and mutated.

From E.V.W. Jones noticing a handful of intriguing events, to George X.

And the rogue shark theory ends up in Jaws, the movie, which is coincidentally, and I should say not in the book.

So Peter Benchley has a comment in the 50th edition of the Jaws book that's been released of a letter that he wrote to Steven Spielberg and said, I always thought it was more menacing if it was... you know, a natural phenomenon of an animal that was, you know, being the jaws shark, um, and was pushing back on the rogue shark theory.

And he didn't win the, uh, Carl Gottlieb and Steven Spielberg were the executive producers pushed back and said, Nope, we need it as a, to tell the story.

And it matched Coppelson story and it matched sort of the, the, uh, the history that people had perceived with lions and tigers and elephants and other things.