It has been 47 years since the movie Jaws was released and one of its most remembered images is that of its promotional poster where a woman appears swimming calmly on the surface of the sea while a shark approaches with its jaw open ready to devour her.
According to Creative Bloq , the image was inspired by the cover of Peter Benchley’s 1974 book of the same name (on which the film was based), which was created by designer Paul Bacon.
However, the main editor of the Double Day publishing house – in charge of publishing the work – rejected Bacon’s design because, according to him, the drawing made by the artist looked like “a penis with teeth”.
In this way, another designer, named Roger Kastel, was asked to take care of making the necessary improvements to the image. Also, in the end, both designs were used on the book covers: the original for the hardcover and the retouched one for the paperback version.
When Spielberg thought of a promotional poster, he couldn’t get the image from that first book out of his head. That is how he asked permission from the company Bantam Books – which published the paperback edition – to use the cover of the novel as a poster for the feature film. The poster is almost an exact replica except for the foam covering the swimmer’s chest in the film’s promotional image.
Three years ago, in 2019, a photographer managed to capture an image that looks like a living copy of the poster for Stephen Spielberg’s Jaws. It is about a 32-year-old British photographer named Euan Rannachan.
The replica of the poster in reality that managed to capture the photographer Euan Rannachan
At that time, Rannachan made headlines for his iconic image. To do it, the photographer was placed in an observation cage under the sea, which allowed him to be located five meters from the animal, while, from the surface, the so-called “shark cowboys”, in a boat, threw pieces of tuna at him. The shark is a white female who has been named Squirrel. The expedition took place on the west coast of Mexico.
“Sometimes when these particular fishermen play with the sharks, the sharks get angry and dive under the boat and the bait so they can get blown away,” the photographer told the Daily News , referring to the moment he decided to press the shutter. Euan Rannachan is famous for portraying these types of animals.