35 years ago, “Parasite”), “Jaws 3D” is … fairly forgettable, despite a marketing campaign that excitingly promised that, “This time, the terror of ‘Jaws’ won’t stop at the edge of the screen.”

It shoehorns existing “Carl Gottlieb, one of the writers of the original movie, also returned.) Still, when the dust settled, “Jaws 3D” was a dud. Try watching it at home and the way that the shark, now robbed of all its stereoscopic oomph, lurches towards the camera. Lame!

But it wasn’t always like this. For a while, at least, Universal had a much more ambitious, much goofier plan for the third “Jaws” sequel that became, in the years since, a legendary case of what-could-have-been.

This is the story of “Jaws 3, People 0.”

In 1978, two films were released by Universal: one was “Jaws 2,” a creatively inert cash-in that, while making money, was nowhere near the blockbuster the original film was.

Two years later, “David Brown had an inspired idea: what if the third film was a low budget comedy?

Brown and Zanuck tasked John Belushi.) Ultimately, Simmons agreed to take on the project, and would later say that it helped him learn about the way that Hollywood functions … or lack thereof.

After he got the go-ahead, Simmons then turned to John Hughes, a star Lampoon writer who would go on to become one of the defining filmmakers of the decade, who penned a screenplay with another Lampoon writer, Tod Campbell. Together, they concocted a script full of both lowbrow and highbrow comedy, at times savagely insightful and oftentimes downright insipid. (The script, completed in 1979, opens with Peter Benchley, the novelist who penned “Jaws,” getting eaten in his swimming pool.)

And for a director, the team made an even more impressive get -- a young Joe Dante.

Dante, now known for a string of high concept comedies, was then just starting out. In 1978, the same year that “Jaws 2” and “Animal House” were released, Dante directed “John Sayles. It was reportedly Spielberg’s favorite rip-off and he enjoyed the fact that a character can be seen playing the “Jaws” videogame early in the film.

They had even assembled a cast for the film, which included Mariette Hartley as a network exec, and in, the main role, Roger Bum, now best known for his voice work on “SpongeBob SquarePants” (he’s Squidward). Everything had solidified … or so it seemed.

While a few million dollars had already been sunk into pre-production and securing deals, Hughes recalled walking into the National Lampoon offices to find Simmons fuming, having just gotten off the phone with Universal, who told him that the movie was off. Simmons blamed Spielberg’s reluctance to move forward with such a tonally disparate sequel, although it was Spielberg who singled out Dante for the job and encouraged the more comedic direction.

According to a Spokane, Washington Sun article from 1979, Ned Tanen, the President of Universal, is quoted as saying, "The script didn't work." Simmons also weighed in: "It's very difficult for a humorist to do business with a studio sitting in judgment about what is not funny, especially when they're [the studio] not humorists." The article notes that if there is a sequel, it "won't be a parody."

Years after “Jaws 3, People 0” fell apart, in the special features for the “Jaws 2” special edition DVD, Brown said that making such a broad satire would have been like "fouling in your own nest.” Still, he concluded, “It would have been golden, maybe even platinum.”

Hindsight is 20/20, even when you're looking back while getting chased by a giant shark.