U.S. to positive reviews, and The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "a major new director is on the horizon." Although the film was honored for Best Screenplay at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, it was not a commercial success. Spielberg blamed Universal's inconsistent marketing for its poor box office results. 1975–1980: Film breakthrough Producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown took a chance with Spielberg, and gave him the opportunity to direct Jaws (1975), a horror-thriller based on the Peter Benchley novel of the same name. In the film, a great white shark attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town, prompting police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) to hunt it down with the help of a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss). Filming proved to be challenging; Spielberg almost drowned and escaped from being crushed by boats. The filming schedule overran by a hundred days, and Universal threatened to cancel production. Against expectations, the film was a critical success; Jaws won three Academy Awards, in Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, and Best Sound, and grossed more than $470 million worldwide. It also set the domestic box office record, leading to what the press described as "Jawsmania", and making Spielberg a household name. After watching the unconventional, off-center camera techniques of Jaws, Alfred Hitchcock praised "young Spielberg" for thinking outside the visual dynamics of the theater, saying "He's the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium arch". After the success of Jaws, Spielberg turned down an offer to make Jaws 2. He and Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a film about UFOs: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). During filming, Spielberg used 65 mm film for the best picture quality, and a new live-action recording system so that the recordings could be duplicated later. One of the rare films both written and directed by himself, Close Encounters was very popular with film-goers, and Spielberg received his first Best Director nomination from the Academy Awards. It also earned six more nominations, winning Best Cinematography, and Best Sound Effects Editing. A Special Edition version of the film, featuring both shortened and newly added scenes, was released theatrically in 1980. His next film was 1979's big-budget action-comedy 1941, about Californians preparing for a Japanese invasion after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Spielberg was self-conscious about doing comedy as he had no prior experience in the genre. However, he was keen on