I have been saying for years that Jaws, one of the greatest movies of all time, is terribly served by its sequels. Sure, Jaws 2 has actually aged pretty well, and manages to feel like a Jaws movie mainly due to the cast and setting, but any further than that into the franchise and things go downhill rapidly.
Jaws 3 has, at best, a kernel of an interesting idea and a couple of good performances but defeats itself frequently. Jaws 4 remains one of the most baffling movies ever made.
With the magnificence of the first movie, it does feel like Jaws deserves a final sequel, but a good one. Made with care. One to bookend the franchise and send it off on a high.
Somebody else shares this opinion. With the Carrie mini-series arriving on streaming and The Exorcist: Martyrs trailer dropping, writer and director Mike Flanagan has been out doing a lot of publicity when he revealed a desire to tackle something special to him, and Jaws isn’t the only thing with a Spielberg connection he would like to tackle.
In an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit, Flanagan revealed that working on a remake and a sequel has changed his view of those sorts of projects:
“I spent a lot of my career thinking I wouldn’t do franchises or sequels, and – whoops – but I really love getting to play in a world I know and respect and adore, and put my own spin on it.
Honestly, I wish to hell I could make a Jaws movie. Another example where no one will ever get close to the original, but there is a ton of room for improvement on the sequels. A Jurassic movie could be a blast too, I’d want to go really scary with it. A true dinosaur horror film would be a blast.”
As frequently mentioned here by Outposters, Michael Crichton’s two Jurassic novels are dark, gory, and completely different to anything we ever saw on screen.
So, there you have it. Somebody creative, currently on an upward trajectory, has said something that will obviously reach the ears of higher ups at Universal. Could it happen? Should it happen?
