The Way forward for Shark Movies: The place’s the Chew in This Area of interest Style Heading?
Ever since Jaws burst onto cinema screens in 1975 and reworked the ocean into a spot of primal terror, shark movies have had an oddly persistent place in popular culture.
50 years on, the place does the style go from right here? Is there nonetheless contemporary water to swim in, or are we merely recycling the identical previous chum?
A Style Going Deeper?
Let’s be trustworthy: the shark movie style has seen all the things from the elegant to the ridiculous. For each The Shallows (2016) or 47 Meters Down (2017), there are a dozen Sharkfi originals like Sharknado or Mega Shark vs. Big Octopus—movies that lean closely into absurdity, typically deliberately, typically not.
However right here’s the query: does the way forward for shark movies lie in camp, or is there a deeper, even perhaps dramatic reinvention on the horizon?
What if Jaws was to actually meet its maker…?
The movie 50 years in the past has spawned a technology of movies which have tried to match as much as its maker. Frankenstein created a monster, however Spielberg created monster cinema that will likely be unimaginable to recreate – 50 years and solely a handful of shark motion pictures have come anyplace near the depth of Jaws.
The Shallows 2016 got here shut. Open Water 2003 tried to tackle a severe actual life subject and wasn’t nearly chasing an ideal white. Others resembling Deep Blue Sea tried to tackle ethics and science. Others had a poke on the enjoyable nature of marine life, and all the things else in between was simply filler chump.
Different movies resembling The Meg and the Meg 2 – the dramatisation of the prehistoric Megalodon shark have struck prospects with so referred to as massive finances motion pictures.
Not too long ago, there was a video on Youtube concerning the risk that Megs have been nonetheless lurking someplace on the backside of the ocean. Far fetched? Perhaps. However for screenwriters – that might be a discipline day of inventive prospects! Once more, no-one lifts their nostril up after they watch movies like King Kong, or, certainly Jurassic Park. And Spielberg has been concerned with many massive finances flicks – together with Jurassic Park, which, like Jaws, took a downward spiral after just a few film sequels. Like Jaws, the yearning for larger and higher motion pictures comes on the value of high quality tales. However so long as the viewers settle for it, the extra the film massive wigs will demand extra!
Streaming in 2025 is Altering the Recreation
Streaming platforms at the moment are the largest predators within the water. Platforms like Netflix, Shudder, and Amazon Prime have opened doorways for lower-budget movies to search out area of interest audiences. Shark movies, with their built-in sense of hazard and spectacle, are an ideal match for quick-turnaround thrillers that thrive on algorithms slightly than field workplace receipts.
Current entries like The Black Demon (2023) and Deep Worry (2024) might not have made cinematic waves, however they discovered their viewers on-line—proving that there’s nonetheless demand for the style, offered it’s served with a contemporary hook.
From Monster to Metaphor?
There’s an rising urge for food for smarter storytelling. Filmmakers are starting to make use of sharks not simply as beasts of horror, however as metaphors—commenting on local weather change, environmental destruction, and even psychological trauma. Consider the ocean as a unconscious thoughts; the shark as a hidden concern. There’s room right here for extra arthouse takes on the style—a sort of “elevated horror” method however with dorsal fins.
Count on extra indie administrators to dive into this area, utilizing sharks not only for soar scares, however for social commentary.
AI and the Subsequent Wave of Filmmaking…
Synthetic intelligence is already reshaping the movie panorama—from AI-enhanced VFX to generative instruments that may script, storyboard, and even voice-act scenes. It’s solely a matter of time earlier than AI touches the shark style too. However that future walks a inventive tightrope.
As director Christopher Nolan, of many field workplace hits resembling Inception, Darkish Knight trilogy, Insomnia, and Memento, put it in Wired Journal 2023:
“The hazard with AI isn’t that it replaces the artist—it’s that it turns into a software for these with no understanding of artwork.”
That’s the strain on the coronary heart of the place shark movies, and the broader business, are heading. With AI making underwater photographs and creature results is cheaper and extra practical, the potential for immersive, emotionally resonant shark thrillers is big. But when used with out imaginative and prescient, the style dangers turning into a digital graveyard of soulless simulations.
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay reminds us that in SXSW 2024:
“Know-how should not outpace ethics. AI might assist us inform tales, nevertheless it should not erase the individuals behind them.”
The way forward for shark movies, then, isn’t nearly higher results or sooner manufacturing—it’s about ensuring the human heartbeat behind the horror doesn’t get misplaced.
Creativity should not be misplaced by AI and expertise.
The Future Is Hybrid?…
In the end, the way forward for shark movies is probably going hybrid—a mixture of horror, motion, darkish comedy, and even documentary-style realism.
Audiences have gotten more and more genre-savvy. They need thrills, sure, but in addition originality. We’ve seen the killer shark. Jaws was the grandaddy of that. What we haven’t seen but is the philosophical shark, the political shark, or the shark-as-antihero.
Youtube is crammed with actual life tales of shark assaults, shark discoveries, and individuals who have survived an assault and advised the story. There are many concepts for people to feast on if one other shark film desires to be written and submitted. Discovering that “killer angle” is like Discovering Nemo, – look deeper and you can see it…Someplace…on the backside…
For instance, how did Jaws get written? An unlikely tragic story in Matawan Creek was the inspiration for the larger image and the novel by Peter Benchley. Had that not been discovered, Jaws might haven’t even been made.
That’s what we imply by wanting nearer!
Sound ridiculous? Perhaps. However then once more, so did Sharknado—and it turned a cultural phenomenon.
Jaws will at all times have the final chuckle.
