Just when you thought it was safe to reboot a classic movie like JAWS just to get it shutdown by Steven Spielberg. You’d think with all of the reboots and remakes that have been going on in Hollywood that someone might have a crazy idea to reboot the JAWS franchise especially with it being 30 years since the original Jaws swam its way into theaters.
The good news is Steven Spielberg is incredibly protective of the original classic’s legacy, at many points over the years promising to never digitally touch it up and also to never allow for it to be remade. And it seems he still feels just as strongly about that decision today as he ever did. Deadline reported this week in a report about Spielberg‘s dealings with Netflix “One area [Spielberg] will not revisit is Jaws.
Deadline heard recently that Universal broached the subject to reboot Spielberg’s breakout classic, with Spielberg producing, and the answer was a firm no. Some at Universal and Amblin said this was already known and not a recent conversation.”
Spielberg’s Jaws was of course followed by three sequels in 1978, 1983 and 1987, but it seems to be Spielberg and Spielberg alone who has made sure the franchise hasn’t been revived in the 30+ years since Jaws: The Revenge. Other than the original Jaws getting Blu-ray and 4K releases, as well as being re-released into theaters and of course continually spawning new toys, games, and merchandise, the franchise hasn’t even so much as threatened to unleash a new movie all these years. And it sounds like that won’t be changing anytime soon.
So if you’re worried about a Jaws remake bringing new versions of Brody, Hooper and Quint to the big screen, you can cast those worries out to sea. For now, it’s just not happening.
I know that I certainly don’t want to see a reboot of the classic shark movie. Everything about the original film was just classic story telling, from the particle effects to the way the story sets up where you have a shark terrorizing a group of beach goers trying to enjoy the summer fun. I don’t want to see a CGI shark with CGI water.