BBC wins festive TV scheduling war with magnificent ‘anti-Christmas’ movie

For anyone who is thoroughly over Christmas before we even reach the end of December 25, the BBC has come through for you with one of its films.

Between the expected fare such as festive specials for the likes of Strictly Come Dancing and Doctor Who and the more thematically cohesive movies like White Christmas, Frozen 2 and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, there’s a decidedly anti-Christmas option available.

A classic thriller-horror directed by legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg and serving as his mainstream breakthrough, Jaws is being shown on BBC2 on Christmas Day night, followed by a documentary marking the iconic film’s 50 anniversary.

And this could easily serve as the perfect antidote to festive overload – especially as it’s also available to stream on Disney Plus should you miss the BBC’s airing.

Due to its initial release in June 1975, Jaws is usually considered a summer film – in fact, it’s seen as one of the first summer blockbusters.

A smash hit at the time, and thanks to successful re-releases and a thriving rental market, Jaws has grossed a colossal $495 million on a budget of just $9m.

It became the highest-grossing film ever made until the release of Star Wars two years later, and has inspired every sharksploitation film that followed as fans continued to devour shark attack movies in its wake.

The Oscar-winning movie tells the story of a man-eating great white shark that attacks a US seaside town, which prompted a rise in sports fishing across America and is decidedly more ocean-based massacre than the warm fuzzy family tale favoured at this time of year.

Jaws starred Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss boasted an iconic theme from composer John Williams and also delivered stone-cold classic movie one-liners like ‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat’.

However, it simultaneously cast sharks as human-killing monsters in the eyes of the public for decades afterwards, when everyone became too terrified to swim in the ocean – something sequel Jaws 2 played on with its tagline ‘Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…’.

However, it might not be such an outlandish choice for Christmas viewing as it at first appears.

For a particularly dedicated section of the fanbase, ‘Jawsmas’ is a holiday celebration invented by fansite The Daily Jaws, merging the 1975 film with Christmas festivities – as you do. Well, we’ve all seen those Jaws Christmas jumpers…

It must also be noted that threequel Jaws 3-D’s own sequel, 1987’s Jaws: The Revenge, is actually known for being an unconventional Christmas flick as it opens with holiday celebrations on Amity Island before they are interrupted by a nearby shark attack.

It has, however, been hit by a measly 2% critics’ rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes – while the original Jaws boasts a whopping 97%, being dubbed a ‘cinematic masterpiece’ and ‘truly great’.

Spielberg has admitted he regrets the way the natural shark population was so impacted by Jaws, the first film and 1974 novel it’s based on by Peter Benchley.

During a December 2022 appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the filmmaker – who is also behind Hollywood blockbusters including ET, Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park – was asked how he would feel to have sharks circling the desert island he had been cast away to for the programme’s format.

‘That’s one of the things I still fear. Not to get eaten by a shark, but that sharks are somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy sports fishermen that happened after 1975.’

He added: ‘I truly and to this day regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film. I really, truly regret that.’

Jaws airs on BBC2 at 9.15pm tonight.

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