Steven Spielberg truly regrets ‘Jaws’ influence on shark population

Los Angeles, Dec 19 : Award-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg "truly regrets" making Jaws as he believes it drove a frenzy of shark killings.The director, 76, who made his name with the 1975 fish horror about a bloodthirsty Great White terrorizing a U.

S.resort, added he hates the idea it painted sharks as man-eaters, reports aceshowbiz.com.

He told Radio 4s Desert Island Discs he fears "sharks are somehow mad at me," and said "I really truly regret that" about the spate of shark killings by fish hunters in aftermath of Jaws release.He added the film was partly to blame for a "feeding frenzy" of "crazy fisherman which happened after 1975," saying, "I truly, and to this day, regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film.

"Jaws was based on a 1974 book of the same name written by Peter Benchley, who went on to become a shark conservationist.Experts say the novel and Stevens film led to professional and amateur fishermen and game hunters swarming to target sharks as trophies.

" Jaws was a turning point for great white sharks," Oliver Crimmen, fish curator at the Natural History Museum in London, told BBC in 2015."I actually saw a big change happen in the public and scientific perception of sharks when Peter Benchleys book Jaws was published and then subsequently made into a film."George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, said "thousands" of fishers set out to catch trophy sharks following the thrillers debut.

"You didnt have to have a fancy boat or gear," Burgess said."An average Joe could catch big fish, and there was no remorse, since there was this mindset that they were man-killers.

"Speilberg conceded that there was manipulation on his part in the radio interview."A filmmaker must never manipulate the audience unless every single scene has a jack-in-the-box kind of scare," he said."Thats manipulation.

I did that a couple of times in Poltergeist and I certainly did it once in Jaws, where the head comes out of the hole.Thats okay, I confess that.

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