Movies
Steven Spielberg is Reportedly Still Determined to Prevent a ‘Jaws’ Reboot from Happening
Why hasn’t the Jaws franchise been brought back to life in well over 30 years, you ask? That’d be because 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 notes 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.
Now how about a sequel to The Shallows? Can we at least get one of those?
Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.
First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.
Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.
Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.
Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.
“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”
She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”
At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.
Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.
[Related] Power Corrupts: Universal Monsters Classic ‘The Invisible Man’ at 90
Dev Patel’s ‘Monkey Man’ Is Now Available to Watch at Home!
Five Underseen Vampire Horror Movies to Stream This Week
‘Stream’ – Horror Movie from the Team Behind ‘Terrifier’ Sets August Theatrical Release
‘The Blair Witch Project’ – Original Stars Release a Statement Asking Lionsgate for Residuals & Recognition
‘Mountain Man’ – Joe Manganiello Will Battle Zombies in Upcoming Horror Movie
