Certainly, Orca is a commissioned film from producer Dino De Laurentiis who wanted to benefit from the success of Jaws, it is nonetheless also a film by director Michael Anderson, who had just directed The Crystal Age the year before, Oscar winner (at least, his producer) for his version of Around the World in 80 Days with David Niven in 1956 and precursor of Hazanavicius' OSS 117 with his indescribable Doc Savage Arrives (1975). Sorry...
A crazy casting££££
The big white shark wasn't just replaced by a little blue whale. To compensate for the lack of originality of his subject, Michael Anderson went for nothing less than two mega stars of the time: Charlotte Rampling and Richard Harris. He even entrusted the musical score to maestro Ennio Morricone who had the difficult task of forgetting the rise of John Williams' violins (spoiler: it was a failure, but the music is good all the same!) and above all offered to the model Bo Derek from the 70's his first role in the cinema.
In short, you absolutely have to rediscover Orca and that's a good thing, since Studiocanal will be re-releasing it on September 4 with a new 4K master. Pre-orders are open.