Steven Spielberg said that he “truly regrets” his part in the declining reputation of great white sharks following the success of his 1975 film Jaws.
The Hollywood director made the comments while on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, saying he fears sharks are "mad" at him for "the feeding frenzy of crazy sword fishermen that happened after 1975".
The BBC show centres around a guest and asks them to choose eight records, a book and a luxury item to take on a desert island.
Spielberg’s regret was made clear after he was asked about his feelings about the possibility that sharks surrounded his island.
"That's one of the things I still fear," he said, "I truly and to this day regret".
Jaws have been widely credited for causing a spike in the misrepresentation of sharks as vengeful creatures, seeing a rise in trophy hunting.
In 2015 fish curator for the Natural History Museum in London Oliver Crimmen said that Jaws was a turning point for great whites.
"I actually saw a big change happen in the public and scientific perception of sharks when Peter Benchley's book Jaws was published and then subsequently made into a film," he told the BBC.
Jaws was "a collective testosterone rush certainly swept through the east coast of the US," says George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research.
"Thousands of fishers set out to catch trophy sharks after seeing Jaws," he says.
The original Jaws grossed US$476.5 million (NZ$750 million) at the box office and is widely regarded as being the first blockbuster movie.
Jaws kicked off a long career for Spielberg, who is also known for Indiana Jones, ET, Schindlers List and Jurassic Park.
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