10 Perfect Movie Endings That Sequels Ruined

2. Producing Jaws 2 Sets Up Jaws To Become A Joke

Jaws was a surprise Hollywood classic that should have been left alone. The logistics of working with an animatronic shark, and filming on the ocean just about destroyed Steven Spielberg, so he wanted no part of a sequel (not to mention the fact that he thought the very idea was cynical beyond words). Additionally, while the ending was insanely impossible, it gave the film the ultimate act of finality. It was the perfect closure to an almost perfect film. The success of Jaws was so immense, though, that Universal demanded a sequel. They figured they could do a workaround, and simply wrote the film around a new shark doing pretty much the exact same thing as the shark in the first Jaws. Despite the fact that they would need a new director, and that the novelty of the first film was the shark€™s revelation, the executives were blinded by money and pushed ahead regardless. The results weren€™t surprising. Audiences knew it for what it was, so it didn€™t reap nearly as much profit as the first one. More damagingly, because it was built around the idea that the ending of the first film didn€™t really matter, it set the platform for two more shoddy, cynical, and exploitative sequels which led to Jaws becoming something of a punchline for greed and excessive studio cynicism (most popularly characterised by the promise of Jaws 19 in Back to the Future 2). If the ending of Jaws had been left alone, the film would still probably strike fear into the hearts of viewers. Instead Jaws can't be seen as anything more now than campy silliness.