“Jaws” star Roy Shedd has been brought back to life — at least on screen, with new technology allowing the film he made when he died 14 years ago to finally be done.

The Oscar nominee hopes the film “Beautiful Blue Eyes,” released today, will finally win him an Oscar.

In 2007, Scheider played the role of a Holocaust survivor who plots revenge against the Nazis who killed his family. He was living in Poland for two months at the time of the filming.

The final day of filming was a four-hour shoot, and Scheider booked a flight to take him back to the United States. But production has moved to Germany, and issues at the border between the two countries meant actors were late on set, leaving only 45 minutes of filming time for key scenes.

Director Joshua Newton didn’t realize the camera wasn’t working properly until Shedd left.

“The film had lines and we had to do it again,” Newton told The Post. “One of the sensors on the camera has a problem and cannot be used.”

Shedd was already on the plane, but agreed to reshoot the scene at a later date. Before he had time to fly back to Germany, however, the actor had an accident at home that sparked his cancer, multiple myeloma, which has been in remission.

“No one realized how ill Roy was, but we knew he wasn’t healthy enough to travel, so we planned to move the set to America,” recalls Newton. “The scene revolves mainly around a truck and we’re delivering it. Roy seems in good spirits and one of the things we talked about was he wanted the movie to be called ‘Beautiful Blue Eyes’ – originally it was Being called the “Iron Cross” is mean.

“But almost the moment the truck arrived in America, we heard the terrible news of Roy’s passing. It was devastating because he was a very special person and we had a special connection,” the director added. “By coincidence, my dad also had multiple myeloma, and at one point, during filming, Roy told me that he had a feeling that I needed to go home and see my dad. I took his advice, My dad died a few days later. We just had this connection.”

Scheider passed away on February 10, 2008 at the age of 75.

Newton was desperate to make the film a tribute to Roy – but after trying the cut without it, he felt the scene couldn’t be complete without it.

So the director turned to technology.

“Steven Spielberg had this ‘Death Mask’ — Roy’s Masquerade, which he used on the ‘SeaQuest DSV’ series, and he lent it to us,” Newton said. “It was scanned by a company in San Diego to create a 3D model of Roy, but the problem was that it didn’t look realistic enough.

He then went to George Lucas’ SFX for help, “but they wanted $3 million, so I gave up.

“The next idea was to make a silicone mask with a prosthetic limb that we could use on another actor. But it just didn’t work,” Newton said. “The actor doesn’t have the essence of Roy. That’s soulless.”

It was only during the pandemic lockdown — 15 years after the film was mostly done and 14 years after Scheider’s death — that Newton discovered the solution he needed.

“Artificial intelligence technology can now finally be used to restore damage,” he said. “Not only did it remove streaks like an eraser, but I used it throughout the movie and now it looks like a whole new movie. It’s like magic.”

The film was Newton’s passion project, as it was based in part on the life story of his own father. While he always knew his parents were Holocaust survivors, it wasn’t until he was 81 that the director’s father Bruno – who had travelled to England on the Kindertransport – told the story of how his parents and sister were murdered by the Nazis.

“It got me thinking about revenge, because despite all these years, what he told me was full of anger and pain,” Newton recalled. “And I think [about] What would happen if a Holocaust survivor took control of the law himself, and how to get his family to help him. This is a revenge story about the impact of the Holocaust on a second generation. “

In the film, Scheider plays a retired NYPD officer who travels to visit his son, who now lives in Germany – only to discover that the man living next door is the Nazi who killed his family.

Newton is delighted that the actor’s fans and family are finally getting to see his final film.

“He put a lot of effort into this film, and I’m glad we can finally honor him by properly showing it in all its glory,” the director said. “No actor has that combination of gravitas and coolness quite like Roy. He did a great job of exploring the emotional pain his characters go through. I miss him so much. I think people will relate to
Story, I hope they think we make Roy proud. “