Director Steven Spielberg nicknamed the pneumatically-powered shark “Bruce” after his shark of a lawyer Bruce Ramer. Bruce the prop was an actual beast, weighing in at 1.2 tons and spanning 25 feet in length and not the easiest thing to maneuver. The production itself was marred with technical problems, most of which were the temperamental Jaws.
The shark was so mechanically flawed in fact, that they were forced to limit its screen time. It takes a good hour and 20 minutes before the shark fully appears and the continuous problems took their scheduled 65-day shoot and stuck them with 159-days of Spielberg trying to invent clever ways to shoot around it.