Why The Deep Is A Great Scuba Diving Movie
If you’re looking for a good movie that incorporates scuba diving, then look no further than The Deep. Treasure hunting on shipwrecks, check! running from Haitian drug lords with a tendency for some voodoo, check! Robert Saw (Quint from Jaws) as a salty old treasure hunter, check!
Buckle in and grab your popcorn and let’s go explore The Deep!
The Book
Peter Benchley scored big with Jaws, his novel that was turned into the first blockbuster movie and another Jay’s Faves. The Deep book was published in 1976, a year after Jaws was lining moviegoers around the block to see the film. Benchley is said to have been inspired while scuba diving in Bermuda on the Constellation, which had sunk on/right-by two other shipwrecks, the Montana and Lartington.
With the success of Jaws, it did not take Hollywood long to snatch up The Deep to make that into a movie also. Before The Deep was even published, Columbia Pictures had bought the rights and the movie came out just one year after the book!
The Movie
The Deep was released on June 17, 1977 and was a smash hit. It was the seventh highest grossing movie in 1977 in a year that also saw Star Wars, Smokey and the Bandit, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Spy who Loved me. In fact, it grossed more than the Bond film for that summer.
| Rank | Title | Distributor | Box-office gross |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Star Wars | 20th Century Fox | $221,280,994 |
| 2 | Smokey and the Bandit | Universal | $126,737,428 |
| 3 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind | Columbia | $116,395,460 |
| 4 | Saturday Night Fever | Paramount | $94,213,184 |
| 5 | The Goodbye Girl | Warner Bros. | $83,700,000 |
| 6 | A Bridge Too Far | United Artists | $50,750,000 |
| 7 | The Deep | Columbia | $47,346,365 |
| 8 | The Spy Who Loved Me | United Artists | $46,838,673 |
| 9 | Oh, God! | Warner Bros. | $41,687,243 |
| 10 | Annie Hall | United Artists | $38,251,425 |
The move was closely adapted from the book and Peter Benchley helped with the screenplay for the film. The story follows a couple (Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset) on vacation in Bermuda who, while scuba diving. stumble across some old Spanish treasure and morphine vials that local mob boss Cloche (Louis Gossett Jr) is just dying to get a hold of. They enlist of help of treasure hunter Romer Treece (Robert Shaw from Jaws) and the clock is ticking as to who will get the treasure and who will get dead.
The movie packs in adventure, thrills and a little comedy and keeps you engaged throughout its 2 hour run time. And any scuba diver will enjoy the many beautiful underwater scenes with shipwrecks and multitude of marine life, including a giant menacing moray eel.
Scuba Diving Locations
Divers can visit some of the sites where the movie was filmed. Many he shipwreck scenes were filmed on the RMS Rhone, in the British Virgin Islands. This UK Royal Mail Ship was a 310ft long and 40ft wide sail-steamer. She sank in a hurricane on October 29, 1867 taking 123 lives with her. The bow and stern split and are about 100ft apart, with the bow being at a depth of about 80ft and the stern being at a depth of about 35ft.
Other underwater scenes were filmed in Bermuda, but some were filmed in Australia. For example, the tense shark attack scene was filmed at Marion Reef, Diamond Islets, and Lihou Reef in Australia’s Coral Sea.
Final Thoughts
I’ve easily watched The Deep well over 50 times. I love to put it on and get lost in the adventure and diving, especially during our Buffalo, NY winters. For my dad it was TV shows like Sea Hunt and The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau that got him into diving. For me, it was movies like The Deep.
For more of Scuba Jay’s favorite scuba movies check out the 20 + Best Scuba Movies.
More Of Jay’s Faves
Check out the below, if interested in more of Jay’s Faves.
“How boring would the world be if everywhere and everyone were the same. Safe travels and good adventures.” Scuba Jay
