Steven Soderbergh saw Jaws approximately 31 times in theaters as a teenager. He has been studying how Spielberg made it ever since. Now, 51 years after the film's release, he turned all of that obsession into Production 02074, an interactive app that traces all 143 production days of Jaws in granular, almost forensic detail.
Every decision. Every disaster. Every pivot that turned a broken mechanical shark into the most influential blockbuster ever made. That is what this app documents, day by day, with the kind of specificity that only someone who has spent half a century thinking about a single film could assemble.
The title itself is a deep cut. Production 02074 was the internal designation Universal used for Jaws during filming. Most people do not know that. Soderbergh does, because of course he does. The man directed Traffic, Ocean's Eleven, and Contagion while simultaneously maintaining what might be the most meticulous film study practice in Hollywood. He publishes his annual viewing lists, he has written extensively about technique and craft, and he once re edited Raiders of the Lost Ark in black and white just to study Spielberg's staging. This app is the natural endpoint of that lifelong project.
What makes Jaws such a perfect subject for this kind of deep dive is that the production was famously disastrous. The mechanical shark barely worked. The budget ballooned. The shoot went massively over schedule. A young Spielberg, only 27 at the time, was convinced his career was over while making it. And yet every problem forced a creative solution that made the film better. The shark not working meant Spielberg had to hide it, which created more tension than showing it ever could have. That single constraint basically invented the modern blockbuster.
If you have ever wondered why Jaws works when everything about its production should have killed it, this app is the most detailed answer anyone has ever assembled. It is not a documentary you watch passively. It is an interactive experience you move through at your own pace, exploring each production day as its own mini story within the larger narrative of the shoot.
Rewatch Jaws first. I mean it. Even if you have seen it ten times, watch it again with fresh eyes before opening the app. Then start going through Production 02074 and realize how much Spielberg buried in plain sight. Shots you always took for granted suddenly reveal themselves as solutions to problems you never knew existed. The famous dolly zoom on Brody at the beach. The barrels in the third act. The Indianapolis monologue. All of it has a production story behind it that changes how you see the finished film.
Soderbergh built this thing with the care of someone who considers Jaws not just a great movie but the great movie. After spending time with the app, I am starting to think he might be right.
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