The Shark Is Broken

In 1974, three actors spend a film shoot off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, rocking in the Orca, a rickety fishing vessel, and waiting for the cameras to roll. The men--Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and Richard Dreyfuss--are unknowingly making the first summer Hollywood blockbuster: Jaws. They are rightfully skeptical of the film’s potential, as the director (Stephen Spielberg) is very new to Hollywood, the production is overbudget, the script’s source material is questionable and the script is unfinished, and the mechanical shark keeps breaking down.

The Shark is Broken is the dramatization of how the three men spent their time on the Orca, waiting for the shark (known as “Bruce”) to be repaired. Heavy-drinking Robert Shaw, a well-respected Shakespearean actor, plays the bitter and unpredictable Orca captain Quint--a fisherman obsessed with sharks who refuses to ever put on a life vest again. Former boxer and level-headed Roy Scheider plays the new chief of police of Amity Island; ironically, he is terrified of water and can’t swim. Finally, Hollywood newcomer Richard Dreyfuss plays Matt Hooper, the oceanographer who wants to use science to take down the murderous Great White shark. The three men (like their characters) couldn’t be more different, and tensions and tempers often explode. The Shark is Broken writers Ian Shaw (son of Robert Shaw) and John Nixon create a story of humor and film lore that explores the creative process and celebrates the personalities involved in making one of the most significant films of the twentieth century.