The Irony of Jaws 19

In its first act Back to the Future, Part II was set in the then futuristic-seeming year of 2015. Some aspects of that future (mostly the attractive ones) have come to seem fairly dated--like the idea of flying cars running on garbage, and hoverboards, and weather reports accurate down to the minute. Others have proven more perceptive--like how '80s nostalgia would be big in the '10s, down to a fondness on the part of some for retro gaming.

Others were a mix of both. In the film's depiction of "Jaws 19" playing at theaters the film was entirely right about how shameless Hollywood would become about indulging its addiction to franchises. But it was, ironically, wrong about the Jaws franchise being the epitome of that. After Jaws 4 flopped back in the summer of 1987 (not the only fourquel to do so that box office season) it pretty much left Jaws alone, putting an end to one of the franchises that launched Hollywood along its current, high concept-dominated path, even as it stuck like glue to just about every other franchise of those same years, so that the Star Wars and Superman and Star Trek and Alien movies just kept on coming.