When shooting originally began (with John D. Hancock as director), Amity was envisioned as a near ghost-town, with boarded-up stores, crumbling facades on buildings and an economy in shambles after the events of Lo squalo (1975). Hancock quickly ran into problems: First, the residents of Martha's Vineyard, where the film was being shot, refused to allow permission for their stores and houses to be boarded up. Secondly, his dailies were constantly being criticized by the studio for being "too contrasty and blue", with perpetual requests to lighten up the tone of the film. According to Hancock, however, his eventual firing was the result of a power struggle between co-producer Richard D. Zanuck and MCA chairman Sid Sheinberg, in particular Sheinberg's insistence that his wife Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brody) have a bigger role in the film. Zanuck adamantly refused, and Hancock's wife and co-screenwriter Dorothy Tristan eventually submitted a screenplay that did not include Sheinberg's requested changes. Moreover, Hancock ran into problems on the film with an unnamed actress and had her fired; he did not know that the actress was the girlfriend of an MCA executive. With a month of filming in the can, and 18 months already spent on the production, Hancock and Tristan were both fired, halting production on the film and leading to the eventual hiring of Jeannot Szwarc as director. Two scenes from the "Hancock Cut" are still in the movie: the sharks fin rising above the surface after the party, and the sharks "big shock" at the end.

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