Caffeinated Clint
Universal eyeing direct-to-video “Jaws 5”?
Just wanted to log on for a bit to, well, rub a bit more salt in the wound… is this like shoddy direct-to-video news week or what?!
If it ain’t enough that economically-budgeted sequels to “The Lost Boys”, “New Jack City”, and “Legally Blonde” are in the works, for a premiere in your loungeroom sometime next year, get this : A fifth “Jaws” movie is in the works – and from the sounds of it, you’ll be wishing Michael Caine was back fighting white-pointers by the time this item’s finished [If only because Roy Scheider wouldn’t come ten-foot near another frickin’ “Jaws” movie, and that’s well, the only way it would work].
Universal’s “Jaws 5” will be an in-name in-character in-music (can’t do a “Jaws” movie without John Williams’ classic score, after all!) sequel to the Steven Spielberg originated film series, according to Film Rot.
An unnamed screenwriter told the site that “[Universal] came straight fucking out and told me that they’re trying to rehook people back into the Jaws franchise. They reckon with cutcost CGI being what it is they could churn this stuff out. I told them somebody already was with those Shark Attack movies with the dude out of Starship Troopers. This one guy says “Yes, but they’re missing the one thing ours won’t be!” I was all like “What’s that?” He says “The Jaws title and the Jaws theme! We own them!” No, I didn’t tell him that those were TWO things! So they asked me if I’d read or was aware of the Deep Blue Sea sequel script that was out there that Warners are hoping to make a straight-to-DVD series out of. I say no and they tell me all about it. It sounds shit. I tell them that. They agree. They ask me what ideas I have on getting people back into Jaws. I totally had nothing but I pitched it anyway. Pitched them on what I would go rent.”
The writer says he pitched them a restart.
“You reboot the franchise. Look at what Warners is doing with Superman and Batman and Sony are doing with Bond. It’s hardly comparable, being a fucking rubber shark monster, but what the hell. You forget that Jaws 3 and Jaws 4 were ever made. You bring Brody back. Only this time he’s totally fucking frazzled from the shock of what he’s gone through twenty odd years ago. He’s an old man, he’s alcholic and he’s fucking emotionally broke. His son’s live away, his wife’s dead and he’s about to be forcibly retired from Amity’s police department after decades. Then a shark comes back, starts doing it’s shit and Brody pulls himself together and decides that catching and killing the shark will be his salvation. They didn’t like this. They were all about the “It sounds dark!” “It sounds unmarketable in the avenue we’re considering!” They started talking to me about the straight-to-DVD market being for the teens and primarily young males/females and that they were wanting to focus more on that. One guy says “You know? Teens in peril? That sort of thing?” I reply “You mean like Jaws 2?” Another tells me that [Roy] Schieder wouldn’t touch anything remotely linked to Jaws sequels. They said that back in the early 80s they nearly sued him because he was contracted to 2 sequels and he did one and refused the other and they got round it in the end by him letting them use his stuff in Jaws 4 but not having to pay him a dime! It doesn’t look likely for me. Then again my agent is telling me that I was 20th down the line from being offered it so it seems fucking nobody wants to touch it…”
The scooper also mentioned that Universal are doing two direct-to-video sequels to “The Fast and the Furious” and a follow-up to Stephen Sommers’ “Van Helsing” starring Julian McMahon.
I’ll wait for the confirmation… but meantime, ain’t the movie business grand?
