Here’s a fun piece of Hollywood trivia for you. In 1981, a movie called Great White hit theaters, and made over $18 million domestically, before being yanked from theaters when Universal sued the filmmakers for ripping off Jaws. The movie, which was one of the many Jaws clones released in Italy in the wake of Jaws’s success, was directed by Enzo G. Castellari and was seen as an even more blatant than usual rip-off, with it centring around a seaside community terrorized by a Great White shark, whose mayor refuses to take the threat seriously – only for a crusty old shark hunter to team up with a nerdy landlubber to save the day. Sound familiar? In the years since they blocked it, the film, which was called The Last Shark in Europe, has once again become available, and now it’s getting a fully-loaded Blu-ray from British Label Treasured Films.
One important thing to note though, is that while the artwork has a reversible sleeve that allows viewers to choose between the titles The Last Shark and Great While, the American re-cut by Film Ventures, which was the one blocked, is not on the disc. This version of the film has a score by Morton Stevens which was very similar to what John Williams composed for Jaws, and might be one of the reasons Universal was able to get the film pulled. Nevertheless, the extras, which were revealed by our friends at Blu-ray.com, are impressive:
- Presented in widescreen from high definition master
- NEW Audio Commentary with Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth
- NEW Great White Enzo: Interview with Director Enzo G. Castellari (16:43)
- NEW High Tide: Interview with Actor Massimo Vanni (22:11)
- NEW Big Fishes in a Sea Full of Sharks: Interview with Producer Maurizio Amati (19:42)
- NEW Blood Tide: Interview with Producer Ugo Tucci (13:00)
- NEW Unfamiliar Waters: Casterllari Out of Action: Video essay by Mike Foster
- NEW Squali! A Brief Introduction to the Italian Killer Animal Current: Video Essay by Eugenio Ercolani
- Image Gallery
- Trailer and TV Spot
- Reversible Sleeve featuring two artwork choices
- Uncompressed English DTS-HD Master Audio
- English SDH Subtitles
Sadly, the Blu-ray disc is REGION B-locked, but will work fine if you have a multi-region player. It drops on June 6th!
Here’s the artwork:
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