Summary

• The premise of sharks swimming up a river in "Under Paris" is inspired by a real 1916 event that was rumored to inspire "Jaws."
• The author of "Jaws" denied taking inspiration from the New Jersey shark attacks, even though his novel had quite a few similarities to the real-world tragedy.
• In "Under Paris," the explanation for sharks swimming in the Seine involves mutations caused by climate change and pollution.

There aren't really sharks in the Seine, though, and there are quite a few reasons they wouldn't be able to make it that far inland, which makes Under Paris seem impossible. There was, however, a real-world tragedy in 1916 that makes it less unbelievable.

Under Paris the best shark movie since Jaws, and it turns out they share a similarity beyond just their subjects. This 108-year-old tragedy has been rumored to be one of the inspirations behind the original Jaws novel, but it seems Under Paris used it as an even more direct inspiration. Under Paris might deal with some unlikely shark behavior, but the original premise, of sharks being in a freshwater river, isn't completely unheard of.

Under Paris' Initial Premise Isn't That Absurd After New Jersey's 1916 Shark Attacks

Under Paris' premise, that sharks could swim up a river and attack people inland, is far-fetched, but not as outlandish as it seems at first. As chronicled by the Smithsonian Magazine, there was a rash of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey in 1916. Five different people were bitten and died, and the final victims were attacked in the freshwater, albeit slightly salty, Matawan Creek, 16 miles inland. It was a massive mystery that captured the public's attention at the time, and there's still quite a few unanswered questions about the New Jersey shark attacks.

The type of shark responsible for the attack still hasn't been positively identified, mostly because it's so difficult to the truth from other rumors that were circling at the time. It's also such an unusual case: most sharks can't normally swim up a freshwater river, even though Matawan Creek does connect directly to the Atlantic Ocean. There are some clear parallels between the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks and Under Paris, and the fact that a shark really has traveled up a river to attack someone before makes the movie's premise seem more plausible.

Jaws Author Pete Benchley Denied The New Jersey Attacks Inspiration (But The Connection Is Still Often Made)

Jaws is based on a novel of the same name written by Peter Benchley. It was rumored that Benchley used the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks as inspiration for that novel, but the New York Times reported that he denied it was one of his inspirations. Still, Jaws has quite a few similarities to 1916. Like in real life, Jaws concerned a shark that had come much closer to shore than it normally would, and began attacking people off the coast of New England. The movie even directly mentioned the New Jersey shark attacks, when Brody and Hooper were trying to convince the mayor to close the beach.

How Under Paris' Explanation Compares To The Reasons For The Real Sharks Coming Upstream In 1916

The 1916 New Jersey shark attacks and Under Paris were similar situations, but they had very different explanations. In real life, no one knows exactly why the shark attacked. At the time, they had no idea what animal was behind the attacks, and the media and other people came up with some odd theories, from suggesting it was a school of sea turtles to implicating German U-Boats in leading a marine predator to the United States. In the modern day, there have been theories that it had something physically wrong with it, but ichthyologists seem more inclined to believe it was just a very unusual, one-off event.

There is also some confusion over what type of shark exactly attacked in 1916. The prevailing theory is that it was a great white, based on eyewitness descriptions of the attacks. However, modern ichthyologists are more uncertain. Given Matawan Creek's freshwater, and the size of some of the bite marks, they think it could have been multiple sharks, and that one was a bullshark, a species of shark that can survive in freshwater. There's no definitive answer, though, and the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks remain largely a mystery, and proof that fact is sometimes stranger than fiction.

In Under Paris, however, there was a fairly well-explained reason the sharks made it upstream. Lilith, the main shark in the movie, was a Mako, which cannot survive in saltwater. She had a few mutations, though, and one of them allowed her to survive in freshwater. That explained how she could survive in the Seine, and Mika explained she was forced inland by climate change and pollution, which caused her to change her behavior to survive. That explanation is where Under Paris starts to deviate from real life and asks its viewers to suspend their disbelief.

Source: Smithsonian Magazine, the New York Times