News

Deep Blue Sea (1999) is a thrilling 25-year-old shark horror movie directed by Renny Harlin. With a 60% score on Rotten Tomatoes, Deep Blue Sea is a divisive film that has nonetheless developed a cult following since its release. The B-movie boasts a fantastic cast who play scientists researching a remote island. Their experiments on sharks, designed to cure Alzheimer's disease, take a terrifying turn when the genetically engineered creatures become intelligent and deadly.

The movies talented lineup and impressive special effects elevate it above the typical B-movie standard while retaining the so-bad-it's-good shark movie appeal. It's a fun, campy, and entertaining disaster flick that has become a cult classic shark movie among horror and sci-fi fans. Deep Blue Sea's enduring legacy explains why many fans are eager to learn where the movie's cast is today.

Thomas Jane As Carter Blake Date Of Birth: February 22, 1969

Active Since: 1987

Actor: Thomas Jane was born in Baltimore,...

There’s no doubt that Heavy Rain is one of the best action-adventure titles back from the golden days of gaming. It’s a critically acclaimed title where gamers must make various choices that end up shaping the story. It brought a strong narrative and a set of unique characters to the table back then.

Heavy Rain is back on the radar. (Quantic Dream)

Without countless releases in the genre over the years, Heavy Rain lost to time. However, the game is once again witnessing an upsurge in popularity due to its unique antics that have captured the attention of modern-generation gamers.

Heavy Rain’s Viral Clip Prove Why its a Top-Tier Game Heavy Rain features a hilarious chase scene. (Image via Quantic Dream)

Well, Qtes, or quick-time events, are quite a heated topic within the gaming community. Some believe they are poorly implemented and ruin immersion in a game that’s been carefully crafted.

Those of us enamored with shark horror generally accept Jaws as the unrivaled king.

Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic not only perfects the art of underwater suspense, it expertly blends high seas adventure with family drama and genuine dread. But Spielberg’s masterpiece fails to answer one glaring question: what if sharks were super smart? That’s the premise of Renny Harlin’s 1999 film Deep Blue Sea, a sharksploitation crowd-pleaser that succeeds by fully committing to its outlandish bit. The story follows the crew of Aquatica, a doomed ocean research center torn apart by three massive – and massively intelligent – mako sharks. With all the trappings of 90s slasher fun, the film merges Jaws and Spielberg’s other man vs. nature classic Jurassic Park for an aquatic horror blockbuster that’s aging like a fine blood-red wine spilling into the ocean.

Harlin’s story begins with a near miss kill. Two attractive...

Beyond Jaws, shark movies like The Shallows and The Meg explore different perspectives and threats in the underwater world. Deep Blue Sea mixed science fiction with horror, showing the dangers of playing with nature and creating super-intelligent sharks. Under Paris takes a twist on traditional shark films, introducing mutated sharks and exploring the consequences of pollution on marine life.

When it comes to shark movies, it's hard to deny that Steven Spielberg's Jaws ranks atop the ladder. However, there have been other films in the genre that have made waves. Blake Lively's The Shallows is a prime example, dealing with a surfer fending off a shark on a rock. There are also The Meg movies that deal with massive sharks prowling oceans.

Of course, 1990s fans will remember Deep Blue Sea. This movie leaned more into sci-fi than suspense, gore and horror, like the others. Interestingly, an underrated...

Deep Blue Sea has been gaining more attention since a petition was launched by fans to restore the film’s original ending. We look back at the best shark horror film to come out of Hollywood since Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.

Warning: Spoilers for all of Deep Blue Sea!

I think we can all agree that Steven Spielberg’s breakthrough film Jaws is about the best eco horror film of all time, and the best shark film of all time. Jaws has made an irreversible, humongous mark on popular culture and it genuinely made people scared to go in the water. It also holds impeccably after all these years.

However, some have found fault in how the film treats sharks. Many complained that Jaws demonised them for no reason, but the film also inspired a lot of real life research on them (and Spielberg too has expressed some regret about the demonisation). No pain,...

Fans of the 1999 shark movie Deep Blue Sea are petitioning to change the film's ending back to the original plan. The original ending would have resolved the character arc of Dr. Susan McAlester and redeemed her, instead of killing her off for audience pleasure. The petition has gained momentum in recent months, with over 700 signatures and counting, and even received support from the film's star, Thomas Jane, and director, Renny Harlin.

With 2024 marking the 25th anniversary of Deep Blue Sea, it's no surprise that some fans of the 1999 shark movie want the film's original ending to be released.

Deep Blue Sea is an action film that was directed by Renny Harlin and starred Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane, Samuel L. Jackson, Jacqueline McKenzie, Michael Rapaport, Stellan Skarsgård, and LL Cool J. The film followed a group of scientists experimenting on DNA-altered sharks in an attempt to find a cure for Alzheimer's.

The newspaper ad for "Deep Blue Sea" kind of says it all: wet and terrified, Saffron Burrows is about to be eaten by a very big shark. One can't help but have certain expectations. See created-by-science monsters go amok! See a feisty crew of adventurers go bye-bye one at a time! See pretty girls die and men ride the giant, man-munching beast.

The Warner Bros. wide release, bumped up to Wednesday, should chomp up the competition, given the awareness and relative uniqueness of the movie.

Shocking but true, we live in an era where the original theatrical release of "Jaws" and its mostly abysmal sequels are ancient history. There really hasn't been a good shark movie since Steven Spielberg's big hit 24 years ago.

Savvy casting -- with a mixture of new faces and character actors -- and director Renny Harlin's extreme-sports approach to the action scenes, cool destructible production design and gruesome special effects, make it all come together in a crowd-roaring swim-hide-die game between unlucky humans and 25-foot-long, genetically altered mako sharks.

Floating research facility Aquatica -- a huge facility with underwater living quarters and laboratories and a fenced-in sea-corral -- is in trouble. Funding might go away, there's a tropical depression headed toward it and someone's been keeping secrets about those strange, messed-with sharks, which may hold the key to regenerating human brain tissue.

The beleaguered head of Aquatica, Dr. Susan McAlester (Burrows) is personally driven to find a cure for Alzheimer's, and she suspects increasing the brain size, and presumably teeth, of makos is making them smarter. And meaner. But her crew is just plain nervous when a seemingly successful experiment -- hurried to save the company and witnessed by a take-charge financial backer (Samuel L. Jackson) -- results in the near gobbling up of the project mastermind (Stellan Skarsgard).

It does take a while for the film to open the human sushi bar, with Jackson's got-the-ax outsider giving Burrows' prickly English gal an excuse to take everyone on a grand tour, and be introduced to chief shark wrangler and aquaman Carter Blake (Thomas Jane), religious cook Sherman "Preacher" Dudley (LL Cool J), Aquatica's excitable engineer Todd Scoggins (Michael Rapaport) and the always budgeted marine biologist/screamer (Jacqueline McKenzie).

But once the three "smart" sharks -- they recognize guns, can swim backwards and behave like 8,000-pound underwater housebreakers -- cause the facility to nearly blow up and sink, with many sections flooded and the survivors separated, "Deep" sees red and there are a half-dozen hoot-and-holler scares and numerous memorable dismemberments.

One doesn't so much root for the sharks (thankfully no attempt is made to really personalize them) as against certain characters, with some of them rudely and quite hilariously removed from the proceedings. (One early clue that the subject matter and appeal of the movie is blood-curdling primal, despite its sci-fi premise that's hard to swallow anyway, is the Film Production's notes, in which casting information is put under the section "Shark Bait".)

"Deep" Heroes Blake and Dudley are at just the right depth for this barn flooder -- guys who know how to survive, how to out-hustle the leaky screenplay and how to fry bogeyfish. Hip-hop artist LL Cool J is sensationally funny, and almost as over-the-top as muscleman Jane. Burrows makes for a delectable but somewhat tart fall girl.

Technical aspects of the widescreen production are generally top-notch given the experienced behind-the-camera crew, including production designer William Sandell ("Small Soldiers"), the editing team of Frank J. Urioste, Derek G. Brechin and Dallas S. Puett, visual effects supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun, animatronic wizard Walt Conti, stunt coordinator R. A. Rondell and underwater director of photography Pete Romana.

DEEP BLUE SEA

Warner Bros.

In association with Village Roadshow Pictures/

Groucho III Film Partnership

An Alan Riche-Tony Ludwig/Akiva Goldsman production

Director:Renny Harlin

Producers:Akiva Goldsman, Tony Ludwig, Alan Riche

Screenwriters:Duncan Kennedy, Donna Powers, Wayne Powers

Executive producers:Duncan Henderson, Bruce Berman

Director of photography:Stephen Windon

Production designer:William Sandell

Editors:Frank J. Urioste, Derek G. Brechin, Dallas S. Puett

Music:Trevor Rabin

Costume designer:Mark Bridges

Visual effects supervisor:Jeffrey A. Okun

Shark action supervisor:Walt Conti

Casting:Christine Sheaks

Color/stereo

Cast:

Carter Blake:Thomas Jane

Dr. Susan McAlester:Saffron Burrows

Sherman "Preacher" Dudley:LL Cool J

Russell Franklin:Samuel L. Jackson

Janice Higgins:Jacqueline McKenzie

Todd Scoggins:Michael Rapaport

Jim Whitlock:Stellan Skarsgard

Running time -- 105 minutes

MPAA rating: R...