2026's Stealth Deep Blue Sea Sequel Is An Instant Cult Classic For Jaws Fans

Published Sep 22, 2026, 8:00 AM EDT Simon Gallagher has worked in movie and TV journalism for more than 17 years. He has written more than 6000 articles and reviews, and edited thousands more. He is an expert in the entertainment industry, particularly in the golden age of screen superheroes. Simon is also a Rotten Tomatoes approved critic. In less than a year, it will be 40 years since the last Jaws movie, and yet generations of shark movie fans still hold Steven Spielberg’s 1975 horror masterpiece as the gold standard for any creature feature set at sea. And just as nature abhors a vacuum, there will always be a steady stream of so-called Jaws clones pushed out to take advantage of the primary franchise remaining on ice. For whatever reason, Universal seems to have zero interest in touching Jaws, so fin enthusiasts are forced to look elsewhere, with uneven results. There can be some gems, though, and over the last decade alone, we’ve seen everything from high-concept single-location survival thrillers like The Shallows and 47 Meters Down to schlocky studio spectacles like The Meg and its sequel. They scratch a particular part of the brain. The formula is usually breathtakingly easy to capture too: just sell how vast and unsafe the ocean is, build tension through the shark’s in-built dramatic tease (the fin), and introduce some humans either too stupid or too full of hubris to realize they’re already chum. That has meant we’re also seen a flood of cheap rip-offs that pollute the water, and, unfortunately, some genuinely good movies get lost in the shuffle. That seems to have been the case for action veteran Renny Harlin’s Deep Water, which took a meager $8m against a $40m budget earlier this year, despite positive reviews, and vanished beneath the waves without really leaving any sort of cultural footprint. But what if I told you this cult classic throwback deserved way more? Deep Water is the Best Jaws Clone in Years To immediately give Deep Water due credit, it gamely tries to throw a new element into the Jaws formula (even if the poster was self-consciously aimed at attracting franchise fans): a plane crash. The premise is also pretty simple: a commercial flight en route to Shanghai crashes into the Pacific Ocean, and survivors are left clinging to parts of the broken-up fuselage, as a pack of Mako sharks picks them off. So, sort of like Quint’s famous USS Indianapolis story, but with a plane and far less likable victims, for the most part. Rated quite high for a disaster movie/shark attack hybrid, it currently sits at 69% on RottenTomatoes, with the audience score almost matching on 71%. And genre fans online have been effusive in their praise of its self-conscious cheesiness and its nostalgic 1990s spirit. Deep Water fundamentally understands the mechanics of the genre that Spielberg built so perfectly, with an eye for genuine suspense, and enough caricatures to make the kill sequences feel rewarding and not just harrowing. It might take things further away from Jaws in terms of scale and cast size, but there’s a lot here for fans of the art form of shark action. Why Deep Water is Perfect for Deep Blue Sea Fans This is obviously another opportunity to see Renny Harlin back in the water after 1999’s king of Jaws dupes, Deep Blue Sea. Deep Water was actually planned to come out more than a decade ago, as a sequel to the vastly inferior Bait 3D, but was shelved after the tragedy of flight MH370’s disappearance. Eventually, Gene Simmons of Kiss revived it as a stand-alone, with Harlin in the director’s chair, and the result is a lot less bizarre than that particular link. And for those who rightly hold 1999’s Deep Blue Sea in high regard as a fine example of high-octane shark attack goodness, Deep Water works as the ideal spiritual successor we’ve been begging for. Returning to the aquatic horror subgenre for the first time since he gave us super-smart Makos taking down Samuel L. Jackson, Harlin delivers the same brand of glorious late-’90s B-movie energy. He knows how to shoot explosive set-pieces, he understands the art shocking deaths, and most importantly, he understands the monster element perfectly. The rewarding reunion of director and shark feature feels particularly welcome given the fractured history of Deep Blue Sea as a franchise. After the original movie made a splash, Jack Perez was tapped to write and direct a direct sequel, and decided to make the franchise’s answer to Aliens, with a squad of Navy SEALS battling weaponized mutant sharks boasting mounted machine guns and missiles in a floating laboratory also taken over by Somali pirates. So, a lot going on, basically. Sadly, that potential B-movie gem never made it past the conceptual stage, and, instead, we got a dismal 0% rated direct-to-video sequel that should have killed the series entirely. But then Deep Blue Sea 3 came along and improved things markedly, but not with Harlin directing. Deep Water feels like the chance he didn’t get to make his own sequel back in the early 2000s. If you've been searching for a shark movie with bite that hits the same spots as Deep Blue Sea, you can find Deep Water streaming on MGM+ now. Release Date May 1, 2026 Runtime 106 minutes Director Renny Harlin A group of international passengers on a flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai make an emergency landing in shark-infested waters. Now the group must work together to escape their sinking plane and the circling sharks attracted to the wreckage.