Iconic ‘Jaws' Movie Poster Has 1 Major Mistake
In a video post to Instagram, New York's American Museum of Natural History curatorial associate of Ichthyology, Ryan Thoni, revealed that the huge fish on the poster bearing its sharp teeth as a woman swims above is actually a smaller and less deadly species.
'The toothy fish in question is actually based on a specimen housed here in the ichthyology collection of the American Museum of Natural History. And that specimen? Not a great white,' he said. 'It's actually a shortfin mako shark. And it's still housed in our collection today."
Thoni then uncovered the museum's mako—with the famous Jaws poster clearly in the background— showing it to be a dead ringer for the movie shark.
'Back in the 1970s, the renowned artist Roger Kastel visited the museum seeking inspiration for a film poster he was working on-- Jaws,' Thoni explained. 'He took photos of the shark models, including this one made from a shortfin mako, which eventually became the key art for the now iconic movie poster.'
Although fast, makos are much smaller than the great white portrayed in Jaws, and accounts of them trying to attack humans are very rare, per Florida Museum's International Shark Attack File.
While doing his research, Kastel likely thought the less-fearsome mako was a great white, but he also admitted to taking some artistic liberties when first creating the drawing for the paperback version of the Peter Benchley book that inspired the movie. 'I did a very rough sketch, and [the publisher] said, 'That's great, just make the shark realistic and bigger. Make him very much bigger!'' Kastel once said, according to Deadline.
Despite the discrepancy with the shark species, the poster was a success because Kastel's shark was indeed terrifying.
Kastel's original 20x30-inch Jaws painting went missing after the movie came out, so it was likely stolen. In a 2014 interview with Collector's Weekly, he revealed, 'It was hanging at the Society of Illustrators in New York. It was framed because it was on a book tour, and then it went out to Hollywood for the movie. I expected it to come back, but it never did.'
June 20, 2025, marked the 50th anniversary of Jaws.Iconic 'Jaws' Movie Poster Has 1 Major Mistake first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 21, 2025
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