Renny Harlin is a Finnish film director, producer, and screenwriter who has worked in Hollywood, Europe, and China. His best-known films include A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Deep Blue Sea.
Deep Blue Sea is a 1999 American science fiction horror film directed by Renny Harlin and starring Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Rapaport, and LL Cool J. It is the first film of the film series by the same name. Set in an isolated underwater facility, the film follows a team of scientists and their research on mako sharks to help fight Alzheimer's disease. The situation plunges into chaos when multiple genetically engineered sharks go on a rampage and flood the facility.
Jaws 3-D is a 1983 American horror film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Simon MacCorkindale and Louis Gossett Jr. It is the second sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws and the third installment in the Jaws franchise. The film follows the Brody children from the previous films to SeaWorld, a Florida marine park with underwater tunnels and lagoons. As the park prepares for opening, a young great white shark infiltrates the park from the sea, seemingly attacking and killing the park's employees. Once the shark is captured, it becomes apparent that a second, much larger shark also entered the park and was the real culprit.
Shark Attack is a 1999 television action thriller film by Lionsgate that first premiered on HBO directed by Bob Misiorowski and starring Casper Van Dien, Jenny McShane and Ernie Hudson. In a once tranquil African fishing village, a marine biologist searches for answers when his friend becomes a victim in a series of brutal shark attacks.
Predator is an American science fiction action horror anthology media franchise centered on the film series depicting humankind's encounters with an intelligent race of extraterrestrial trophy-seeking hunters known as the "Yautja". Produced and distributed by 20th Century Studios, the series began with Predator (1987), directed by John McTiernan, and was followed by three sequels, Predator 2 (1990), Predators (2010), The Predator (2018), and one prequel, Prey (2022). The series has led to numerous novels, comics, and video game spin-offs such as Predator: Concrete Jungle (2005) and Predator: Hunting Grounds (2020). The Alien vs. Predator franchise combines the continuities and universe of the Alien franchise with the Predator franchise and consists of two films as well as varying series of comics, books, and video games. Unlike the Alien franchise, which features a continuous story arc, the Predator films are more non-linear, instead focusing on individual encounters with the Predators spread across multiple timeframes.
12 Rounds is a 2009 American action film directed by Renny Harlin and produced by WWE Studios. The cast is led by John Cena, alongside Aidan Gillen, Steve Harris, Gonzalo Menendez, Brian J. White, Ashley Scott, and Taylor Cole. The film was released to theaters in the United States on March 27, 2009. The film received generally negative reviews.
Jaws is an American thriller film series that started with a 1975 film that expanded into three sequels, a theme park ride, and other tie-in merchandise, based on a 1974 novel. The main subject of the saga is a great white shark and its attacks on people in specific areas of the United States and The Bahamas. The Brody family is featured in all of the films as the primary antithesis to the shark. The original film was based on a novel written by Peter Benchley, which itself was inspired by the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. Benchley adapted his novel, along with help from Carl Gottlieb and Howard Sackler, into the 1975 film Jaws, which was directed by Steven Spielberg. Although Gottlieb went on to pen two of the three sequels, neither Benchley nor Spielberg returned to the film series in any capacity.
The Reef is a 2010 Australian survival horror film, written, directed and produced by Andrew Traucki in his second feature film. The film is about a group of friends who capsize while sailing to Indonesia and are stalked by a great white shark as they try to swim to a nearby island.
Bait 3D is a 2012 3D disaster horror film directed by Kimble Rendall based on the screenplay by John Kim and Russell Mulcahy. It featured Sharni Vinson, Phoebe Tonkin, Xavier Samuel, Julian McMahon, Cariba Heine, Alex Russell, Lincoln Lewis, Alice Parkinson, and Dan Wyllie. The film centers around a group of people who try to escape a grocery store, submerged as a result of a freak tsunami, while being hunted by bloodthirsty great white sharks. The film was released on 20 September 2012 in Australia.
Representations of the shark are common in popular culture in the Western world, with a range of media generally portraying them of eating machines and threats. In some media, however, comedy is drawn from portrayals of sharks running counter to their popular image, with shark characters being portrayed as unexpectedly friendly or otherwise comical. The lists below give an approximate sample of the many forms of representation of the shark in popular culture.
The Meg is a 2018 science fiction action film directed by Jon Turteltaub from a screenplay by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber, loosely based on the 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror by Steve Alten. The film stars Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, and Cliff Curtis. In the plot, a group of scientists encounters a 75-foot-long (23 m) megalodon shark while on a rescue mission on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.
Sharknado is a series of six American made-for-television science fiction action comedy horror disaster films released by Syfy between 2013 and 2018. It has since been expanded into video games and comics, including a spin-off film, Sharknado: Heart of Sharkness, that was released in 2015. The first two films received mixed to positive reviews from critics, while the others received negative reviews.
Deep Blue Sea 2 is a 2018 American science fiction horror film directed by Darin Scott. It is a stand-alone sequel to the 1999 film Deep Blue Sea, and stars Danielle Savre, Michael Beach, and Rob Mayes. In the film, a shark conservationist is hired to consult on a top-secret project involving genetically enhanced bull sharks funded by a pharmaceutical billionaire. However, the highly intelligent super-sharks turn on their masters and begin to pick them off one by one. The film was released direct-to-video on April 17, 2018. It was followed by Deep Blue Sea 3.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged is a 2019 survival horror film directed by Johannes Roberts and written by Roberts and Ernest Riera.
Bodies at Rest is a 2019 action thriller film directed by Renny Harlin, starring Nick Cheung, Richie Jen, and Yang Zi. It is Harlin's third Chinese-language film, following Skiptrace (2016) and Legend of the Ancient Sword (2018). The film had its world premiere as the opening film of the 43rd Hong Kong International Film Festival on March 18, 2019. It was released in China on August 16, 2019. The movie is considered a moderate commercial success.
Deep Blue Sea 3 is a 2020 American science fiction natural horror film, starring Tania Raymonde. Dr. Emma Collins and her team are on Little Happy Island studying the effect of climate change on great white sharks who come to the nearby nursery every year to give birth, their peaceful life is disrupted when a "scientific" team shows up looking for three bull sharks. It is the third and final installment of the Deep Blue Sea film series, and a direct sequel to Deep Blue Sea 2.
The Strangers film series consists of American psychological horror films. Based on an original story by Bryan Bertino, the plot centers around three masked psycho-sociopathic home invaders that prey on the innocent owners. Though the first film was marketed as "based on a true story", this was a slight misdirect as the filmmaker stated that he wrote the concept from a series of break-in burglaries that took place in his neighborhood when he was growing up, as well as borrowing elements from the Manson Family Tate murders. Continuing this marketing technique, a "based on a true story" tag was also included at the beginning of the sequels.
