Despite Steven Spielberg producing the latest Jurassic World franchise, he apparently has no interest in seeing another one of his classic movies retold. Spielberg reportedly shot down the idea of a Jaws reboot being developed at Universal.
Deadline reported that they were recently made aware of a meeting between Spielberg and Universal executives in which the idea of a redo of the 1975 thriller was brought up. While Universal was very keen to explore the possibilities of reigniting the Jaws franchise, Spielberg was reportedly quite against it with a 'firm no' from the legendary director, who was being asked to produce the reboot.
This tidbit of information was buried in an article detailing Spielberg's new deal with Netflix. His production company Amblin Partners has just signed a new deal with the streaming service in which Amblin would release at least two movies a year with Netflix going forward. While there was no confirmation of any of the movies that might be in development as part of that deal, Deadline made it clear that any chance of touching Jaws was clearly off the table.
Released in 1975, Jaws starred Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss in the story of a small beach community whose idyllic summer is terrorized by a man-eating shark hunting in their waters. The movie was infamous for its troubled shoot with many delays, feuds between actors, and a malfunctioning mechanical shark. Despite looking like a disaster in the making, the movie was ended up being a ground-breaking success and ushered in the era of the summer blockbuster, and earned a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. The movie resulted in three sequels, although Spielberg never returned to the franchise himself.
Given that Jaws is one of the most popular movies of all time, it is not surprising at all that the studio pushed to reboot it, especially in this era of nostalgia. It is equally unsurprising that Spielberg would push back on such ideas, even if he is more willing to return to some of his other classics. But unlike the Jurassic Park movies, Jaws was a very simple story that didn't really have a lot of room to grow, as evidenced by the increasingly bad and repetitive sequels that followed.
There have also been countless shark attack movies made since Jaws that have tried and failed to replicate that magic. Even with Spielberg involved, it's hard to see how a reboot could bring anything new to the story. Jaws seems to be one of those cinematic masterpieces that are better left untouched, especially since it remains just as entertaining after all these years.
Jaws is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Source: Deadline