With his new film
Tusk currently playing in theaters, director
Kevin Smith recently spoke with the
Wall Street Journal, where he laid out a pitch for
Steven Spielberg to direct another
Jaws movie.
Kevin Smith is actually directing an homage to
Jaws, of sorts, currently titled
Moose Jaws, which replaces a man-eating shark with a moose, which he wants to make as close as he can to the original
Jaws, "without getting sued by Universal." That topic got the director thinking of the original
Jaws, one of his favorite movies, and how much he would like to see
Steven Spielberg direct another sequel. Here's what the filmmaker had to say, when asked if he thinks the original will ever be rebooted.
"Yeah ... just probably not while Mr.
Spielberg's around. But sooner or later, someone will be like, yeah, people are still afraid of sharks, right? And probably get to it. You see them every once in a while take a stab at the shark market, but
Jaws is just such a tremendous name brand. It could be in this lifetime if one day Mr.
Spielberg is like, 'You know what? I wouldn't mind revisiting it.' That's my dream, dude.
Honestly, I'll watch a
Jaws movie a year because I love the concept and it was my favorite movie as a child. It still captures my imagination. They could still make it a rubber shark and it would still be awesome. But my dream - that's the movie that launched
Steven Spielberg in a massive way. How awesome would it be - in a world where
Ridley Scott goes, 'I'm doing
Blade Runner 2 and
Prometheus' - how awesome would it be if
Spielberg was like, 'You know what, man? I want to go back to Amity Island one more time.' OH! F- you and take my money! People out there are like, '
Smith should quit filmmaking." You know how to get me to quit filmmaking?
Steven Spielberg comes back and makes another
Jaws, I will lay down my director cap, my beret, if you will.
That's a closed circle for me. That's the man that captured my imagination in the first place, sitting in a drive-in, watching
Jaws from the backseat of my parents' Ford and being terrified. So, yeah, why not? Why can't he? I'm not talking reboot, just another shark story from
Steven Spielberg, the man who invented the blockbuster. You got me excited, dude. It doesn't even exist, and like, wow, I'm fired up about a movie that may never happen, but there is a possibility. You gotta have hope. That's what makes you go day to day. Never met the guy, but now I know what I want to talk to him about. 'Please, do one more
Jaws.' How amazing would that be? It's not like he hasn't sequelized before."
When asked how he would approach a new
Jaws movie,
Kevin Smith laid out his idea for a present-day movie set at Amity Island, where the shark invades the town, to so speak.
"No, dude. You set it in the present, and you use a hurricane, and you flood the town. Then the shark is in the town. Not just in the water. Because, again, on the land you're fine. But all that imagery from Hurricane Sandy, of houses underwater - add a great white shark. There's your
Jaws, modern-day
Jaws. Because then you gotta be on a rooftop. A shark could come into your house, dude."
The idea actually sounds a lot like the 2012 movie
Bait 3D, which found a couple of sharks swimming around in flooded supermarket where a number of shoppers were trapped. Perhaps
Kevin Smith hasn't seen that one yet.
Fans of
Kevin Smith's early work may recall several references to
Jaws. In
Clerks, Randall (
Jeff Anderson) made a brief joke about "Salsa Shark" while humming the iconic
Jaws theme. His follow-up
Mallrats featured characters named Quint (
Jeremy London) and Brody (
Jason Lee), named after
Roy Schneider and
Richard Dreyfuss' characters, and there was even a wedding at Universal Studios, right where the shark pops out of the water on the
Jaws ride.
Chasing Amy featured a scene where characters compare their own scars, similar to an iconic scene in
Steven Spielberg's 1975 thriller.
What do you think of
Kevin Smith's
Jaws pitch to
Steven Spielberg? Chime in with your thoughts below.
