Jaws' Most Famous Improvised Line Was A Not-So-Sneaky Dig At Studio Producers
Is "Jaws" the greatest movie ever made? An impossible question to answer, but it's my favorite and the one I've rewatched the most as an adult. I've been lucky enough to see it in theaters a couple of times, including for the IMAX restoration in 2022. As gorgeous as "Jaws" looked in IMAX, the trailer for the restoration is downright uncanny. Almost 50-year-old footage is cut together with modern trailer editing rhythm, from the jumpiness to turning Chief Martin Brody's (Roy Scheider) "You're gonna need a bigger boat" line into the kind of funny stinger you might see in a Marvel Studios trailer.
Now, in the movie, that line happens right after the jump scare where the shark first appears, rearing up behind Brody as he's throwing chum off the stern of The Orca, Quint's (Robert Shaw) fishing boat. Brody's back is turned when the shark breaches the water, letting the audience get a good view of it before he reacts. It's a moment that showcases director Steven Spielberg's natural instincts for blocking. Then, once Brody sees the beast, he tells Quint they'll need that bigger boat.
It's a famous piece of movie trivia that Scheider improvised this line, one of the best unscripted moments in horror movie history. However, the line didn't just spring to him out of nowhere, nor was he acting in character. No, it was a dig at the stinginess of producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown.
The origin of 'You're gonna need a bigger boat'
Carl Gottlieb (co-writer of "Jaws," and author of the behind-the-scenes book "The Jaws Log") explained where this line came from to the Hollywood Reporter in 2016. While the "Jaws" crew was shooting all the scenes set at sea (which make up the entirety of the film's second hour), their equipment (and craft services) were held on a barge nicknamed the "S.S. Garage Sale."
The boat tugging the barge was too small, so everyone kept telling Zanuck and Brown, "You're gonna need a bigger boat." For reference, these are the same producers who at first thought they could get a trained great white shark instead of building a mechanical one.
"['You're gonna need a bigger boat'] became a catchphrase for anytime anything went wrong," Gottlieb recalled, and a lot did go wrong on the "Jaws" set. "If lunch was late or the swells were rocking the camera, someone would say, 'You're gonna need a bigger boat.'" According to Gottlieb, Scheider said the line during takes of several different scenes. Spielberg and editor Verna Fields kept one of them in the movie and it's easy to see why. It feels completely natural to the scene. It also adds levity and talks up the threat of the shark, a rare combination.
The "Jaws" cast and crew worked in unenviable conditions, but it's admirable how they kept their creative spirits alive — all while venting their frustration towards the moneymen.