Grizzly (1976) - Tubi Movies

TITLE: The Bear Flown in From Washington
TOPIC: Grizzly (1976)


In 1976, producer David Sheldon wanted to make a Jaws knockoff with a bear instead of a shark. Director William Girdler found the script sitting on Sheldon's desk and offered to secure financing himself, on the condition that he got to direct. Within a week he'd raised $750,000. The film, Grizzly, was shot on location in Clayton, Georgia, with many local residents filling out the cast. It arrived as one of several nature-revenge films racing to cash in on the success of Jaws the year before.
For the killer bear itself, the production flew in Teddy, an eleven-foot Kodiak bear who was, at the time, the largest bear in captivity in the United States. Getting Teddy from his home in Washington state to rural Georgia ate up a serious chunk of the budget, but the filmmakers got their money's worth: despite savage reviews, Grizzly became a surprise sensation, earning around thirty-nine million dollars and briefly holding the record as the most profitable independent film ever made, until Halloween broke it two years later.
Girdler didn't live to see that record broken. In January 1978, less than two years after Grizzly's release, he was killed in a helicopter crash near Manila while scouting locations for his next project, along with a producer who was traveling with him.
A sequel was attempted in 1983, but it fell apart during production, its financing gone and its footage shelved. That aborted film happened to feature small early roles for three then-unknown actors: George Clooney, Laura Dern, and Charlie Sheen. Grizzly II sat unfinished for nearly four decades before finally getting a release in 2020. The original Grizzly still streams free on Tubi.