The one “terrible” movie Michael Caine wished he had never made and has certainly never seen
Sir Michael Caine is a true force of cinema and a British film icon in every sense of the word. Over the years, he has been granted two Academy Awards, a Bafta and three Golden Globes, amongst many other accolades. Caine’s career is so excellent and so far-reaching that he is one of only five actors to be nominated for an Academy Award in acting across five separate decades. It’s a remarkable fest for a truly inspiring actor, but not everything he has been involved in was a hit.
The London-born legend came through into the public attention after starring in British films such as Zulu, The Ipcress File, and The Italian Job. Some of his most prominent roles have been in movies such as The Man Who Would Be King, The Cider House Rules, Alfie, Educating Rita and The Quiet American. It would launch his career and confirm Caine as one of the best in Britain.
However, more than a few eyebrows were raised when Caine agreed to appear in one of the worst horror sequels of all time, Jaws: The Revenge. The film arrived in 1987 and was produced and directed by Joseph Sargent. It marked the final time that a Jaws film would make its way onto our screens, perhaps for the better, as the picture has been widely discredited as one of the worst of that decade. Considering the other candidates, that’s quite impressive.
In the mid-1980s, Caine and his family prepared to move back to England from Los Angeles. They were having a new house built in Oxfordshire, but the building plans hit a wall when the costs ended up being far higher than anticipated. When he was offered $1.5million to play in Sargent’s film, Caine couldn’t turn the offer down.
Narratively, the 1987 movie focused on the now-widowed Ellen Brody, with Lorraine Gary coming out of retirement to reprise her role from the franchise’s first two films after her husband, Chief Brody, died from a heart attack. Brody is convinced that the titular, great white shark is seeking revenge on her family and follows her out to the Bahamas.
Caine starred in the film and managed to finish building his new house. He later said: “I have never seen the film, but by all accounts, it was terrible.” But like all actors, Caine wasn’t in love with every project he was a part of and this one is only valuable for the house it bought: “However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific,” he quipped. Caine also brought his family along to production in the Caribbean and admitted that they had “a great holiday.”
Because Caine was in the Bahamas to make Jaws: The Revenge, it meant that he couldn’t accept his Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’, won for his role in 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters. In his 1992 autobiography, Caine remembers that the film “will go down in my memory as the time when I won an Oscar, paid for a house and had a great holiday. Not bad for a flop movie“.
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