DBWI: Alfred Hitchcock directs "The Birds" and Steven Spielberg directs "Jaws"

The film rights to Daphne du Maurier's short story The Birds were up for sale in 1961. Alfred Hitchcock, who had directed the adaptation of her Rebecca to an Oscar for Best Picture, loved the story but passed on the chance to produce and direct. Universal picked up the rights and hired Bernard L. Kowalski as director based on his work with Attack of the Giant Leeches. But with the decline in natural horror features during the decade, the film flopped when it got released in 1963, and no major ones in the genre were produced in the next decade.

Ten years later, Universal decided to have a go at the creature feature again by buying the rights to Peter Benchley's then-unpublished novel Jaws. The young Steven Spielberg really wanted to direct but was rejected in favor of veteran Stanley Donen. Known for musicals like Singin' in the Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Donen wanted to do a horror film to connect with more contemporary audiences. Spielberg instead did the comedy Lucky Lady with Gene Hackman. Both critics and audiences viciously hated Donen's film, while Spielberg's was an unexpected success and gave him free rein to do other projects such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, leading him on the path to be one of the most commercially and critically successful directors in history.

What would happen if Hitchcock directed The Birds and Spielberg directed Jaws? Would there be a resurgence in natural horror? Could pretty much anything natural be considered scary?
 
If Speilberg did Jaw, I fear we would have a seen a steady line of cheap Animals attacks movies.
I fear that by the 1990's the combination of CGI and the Sci Fi Channel could have resulted in a series of more and more stupid Animals attack film.
God only knows it would have ended.
A film that mix sharks and Tornadoes?
At least no one could imagined a timeline where something that stupid is a success.

Now some would be happy to see this in place of the large number of Disasters of the Week films that seem to always be on TV these days.
But Science Fiction fans would be upset to lose great Science Fiction shows like Foundation, The Stainless Steel Rat and Deathworld.
 
God only knows it would have ended.
A film that mix sharks and Tornadoes?
How on earth did you come up with a plot like that? Were you smoking crack?

OOC: I think that Hitchcock's Jaws might not even have the shark in it. Hitchcock would so much more play with the psychological horror of the shark. I'd love to see that.
 
OOC: I misinterpreted the OP's scenario. They aren't saying that Hitchcock directs Jaws, but I'm really liking the idea a lot. I might do a vignette about it.
 
But I like the Jaws we got I mean the singing scene by the old captain as he gets drunk on Gansit beer is classic. Does not hurt the role was played by good ole Bing Crosby in one of his final roles.
 
I am not surprised that a film starring killer birds bombed so badly at the box office. What's next? A cowboy Western horror film starring killer horses?
 
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