Steven Spielberg isn’t necessarily averse to the idea of a remake, with his forgotten 1989 drama Always a retread of 1943 Spencer Tracy vehicle A Guy Named Joe, while his next effort behind the camera is upcoming musical West Side Story, a bold move even by his standards when the 1961 feature film version is regarded as an all-time great that won eleven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
However, the legendary filmmaker draws the line at his own back catalog being remade, reinvented, or rebooted, after it was revealed that Spielberg instantly shot down a suggestion from Universal that he produce a new spin on Jaws. Some movies should be well left alone, and the classic shark attack thriller is most definitely one of them.
Spielberg’s breakthrough feature still holds up as an incredible piece of entertainment even 46 years later, and it’s also one of the most important films in Hollywood history, having become the highest-grossing title of all-time when it was released, completely changing and revolutionizing the way the industry approached its theatrical releases as the origin point of blockbuster cinema.
We already got three sequels that weren’t great, and any Jaws reboot is guaranteed to pale significantly in comparison to the original, so it’s ultimately a pointless endeavor that would be driven by nothing more than resurrecting a marketable IP. Besides, there’s been plenty of other enjoyable entries in the shark attack subgenre over the years like The Shallows, The Reef, Open Water, 47 Meters Down, The Meg, and more. And there are a handful more in various stages of production and development as we speak, so it’s hardly as if the concept needs to dust off its very best example in order to thrive.