Why The Meg is the most successful China-US co-production ever!

 How giant shark movie he Meg, starring Li Bingbing and Jason Statham, became the highest grossing China-US co-production in history

Since Jaws invented the summer blockbuster in 1975 shark movies have always been popular with the public, so The Meg’s premise was a winner from the beginning.

Lead actors Jason Statham and Li Bingbing may lack chemistry, but it succeeds by treating the Chinese characters with as much dignity as the American ones.

Li Bingbing (third, left) and Jason Statham (centre) lead an international cast in The Meg (2018). The film made US$530 million worldwide to be the highest-grossing Chinese-American co-production of all time.

In 2018 The Meg caught Hollywood commentators completely off guard. Jon Turteltaub’s giant shark movie became the highest-grossing Chinese-American co-production of all time, making US$530 million worldwide and beating the previous record holder, Kung Fu Panda 3 .

So how did a movie dubbed “the thinking fan’s Sharknado” triumph against the odds?

Based on a 1997 book by Steve Alten, and starring Jason Statham and Li Bingbing, The Meg pits the crew of an underwater research facility against a 23-metre megalodon, a creature previously thought to be extinct.

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INTERVIEW: Li Bingbing battles massive shark in new Hollywood movie The Meg

After battling zombies and giant robots in Hollywood blockbusters like Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) and Transformers: Age Of Extinction (2014), Chinese actress Li Bingbing, 45, now takes on a 75-foot-long shark known as the Megalodon alongside English actor Jason Statham in The Meg.

The sci-fi action thriller directed by Jon Turteltaub.

When a deep-sea submersible that is part of an international undersea observation programme is attacked by a creature and lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, a former deep-sea rescue diver (Statham) joins forces with the daughter (Li) of a visionary Chinese oceanographer to save the trapped crew.

What attracted you to The Meg?

It was a total challenge for me. It challenged my mind, my body and my fears...And I love the adrenaline rush. But the real reason is that I got the chance to pilot a glider for the first time.
The title creature is a mammoth prehistoric shark that threatens the crew aboard an oceanic research vessel.

How do you feel about sharks?

Sharks have lived on Earth over 500 million years. Before beginning work on The Meg, I thought that sharks ate humans. But I learnt that sharks eat only invertebrates and fish.

What kind of training did you do for the film?

I did a lot of research on shark habits. I also trained in scuba diving.

What was it like being in the water - or underwater - for such a long time?

Performing underwater wasn't easy. Sometimes, I had to hold my breath for a long time, which was hard. During a scene... I was wearing diving equipment inside a very small shark cage. The shark was attacking the cage and the cage kept moving. I almost ran out of oxygen. I was exhausted when I got out of the water.

What was it like working opposite Jason Statham?

Working with Jason was amazing and a lot of fun... Jason is very different from the characters he plays. When he smiled, I thought "Oh, he has the nicest teeth!" because I had never seen Jason smile in his films.

Later, I told him that I am not a native English speaker, so I needed to rehearse many times before we filmed our scenes. He was so sweet and supportive, and kept saying there was no way he could have done this film in Chinese.



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Check Out These Awesome Covers of September's Harper's Bazaar China featuring Jason Statham and Li BingBing

‘The Meg’ – An outrageously fun, pulse-pounding thrill ride

Something very big is about to rise from the ocean’s unfathomable depths to seriously rock Warner Bros. Pictures’ new sci-fi action thriller “The Meg.”

That very big something is the titular creature – a 75-foot-long prehistoric shark – in “The Meg,” a pulse-pounding thrill ride and outrageously fun movie event that combines action and humor and pits action superstar Jason Statham in a head-to-head battle with a mammoth megalodon.

Large-scale action is familiar territory to director Jon Turteltaub, who previously helmed blockbuster adventures like “National Treasure” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

The Meg — or, to give it its full name, Carcharocles megalodon — was a species of shark that lived on seals, giant turtles and whales until its extinction around 2.6 million years ago. It was a true monster, so huge it would have made the great white in Steven Spielberg’s seminal summer movie “Jaws” look like a minnow. It certainly captured the imagination of author Steve Alten, who wrote a science-fiction novel that envisioned the return of such a creature to modern-day waters, published in July 1997 as Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror. It was a success, and five sequels followed.

Instrumental in getting “The Meg” made into an event motion picture was producer Belle Avery, who after reading the novel instantly thought: “This is a great popcorn movie. People like to go see monster movies, but if those monsters are real creatures that actually existed, I think you’re much more ahead of the game, because people want to go and see what they looked like.”

Deciding what the Meg looked like was not quite as straightforward as you might imagine. “One school of thought was to make it look like a 75-foot-long great white,” says Turteltaub. “Because when you look at a great white, an audience instantly goes, ‘Uh oh!’ And a 75-foot ‘Uh oh!’ is pretty scary. But, I wanted to create a shark that was a little less developed, a little less perfect, a little uglier and more specific to what life might have been like deep in the ocean three million years ago.”

The novel theorized that megalodons could have survived extinction by moving to the warmer, high-pressure depths of ocean-floor ravines like the Mariana Trench. And in this movie, it is in such an abyss that the terrifying Meg is discovered by a high-tech Chinese deep-sea exploration operation named Zhang Oceanic, overseen by Li Bingbing’s character, Suyin. It won’t be long before the Meg finds its way back up to the surface waters, which are now filled with a tasty new snack: humanity.

For Turteltaub, the appeal was to sink his teeth into “an entire movie genre I’d never worked in. I get to play in a whole new sandbox, so to speak, with a whole bunch of different movie rules. I like the pure fun of it. And I also like the challenge of making a Jason Statham action movie with no car chases, no fist fights or guns,” he adds with a laugh.

“Jerry Bruckheimer warned me about making undersea movies,” says Turteltaub, referring to his producer on the “National Treasure” movies and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” who had plenty experience of his own filming on water with the “Pirates of The Caribbean” movies. “As soon as you go underwater, everything moves very slowly and is not conducive to action. I’ve had Jerry’s voice in my head the whole time, ready to say, ‘I told you so’. So, we had to work out how to keep things exciting with that challenge. And the way to do that was to mix up what’s underwater and what isn’t, while also building on the element of surprise and playing on what you can’t see. At any moment something really, really scary can happen. And that keeps the audience on edge.”

Diving into Philippine cinemas nationwide August 8, The Meg will be released in 2D, 3D and 4D in select theaters, as well as in IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and other large premium formats. The film is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Entertainment Company.

About “The Meg”

In the film, a deep-sea submersible—part of an international undersea observation program—has been attacked by a massive creature, previously thought to be extinct, and now lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest trench in the Pacific…with its crew trapped inside. With time running out, expert deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is recruited by a visionary Chinese oceanographer (Winston Chao), against the wishes of his daughter Suyin (Li Bingbing), to save the crew—and the ocean itself—from this unstoppable threat: a pre-historic 75-foot-long shark known as the Megalodon. What no one could have imagined is that, years before, Taylor had encountered this same terrifying creature. Now, teamed with Suyin, he must confront his fears and risk his own life to save everyone trapped below…bringing him face to face once more with the greatest and largest predator of all time.

Rounding out the international main cast of “The Meg” are Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, Page Kennedy, Jessica McNamee, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Robert Taylor, Sophia Shuya Cai, Masi Oka and Cliff Curtis.

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"The Meg" Shanghai Film Festival

Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, and director Jon Turteltaub promoting "The Meg" in Shanghai. 

 

The Meg Photo Gallery

The first production photo from MEG!

(Daniel Smith)

Jason Statham is gonna need a bigger boat.

The giant shark movie Meg began production in New Zealand this week, and Warner Bros. has released the first photo from the project.

Meg sees Statham as a rescue diver named Jonas Taylor. He’s enlisted to save a deep-sea crew left stranded at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean by a 75-foot-long shark called the Megalodon, a prehistoric creature he encountered before. Li Bingbing (Transformers: Age of Extinction) plays Suyin, the daughter of the oceanographer who recruits Jonas, and the two must work together to confront the beast. 

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‘Meg’: Filming Begins

It’s been a long road through development hell for Meg, a monster movie about a giant shark, but cameras have finally started rolling on the Warner Bros. picture. The project finally gained serious steam last year when filmmaker Eli Roth signed on to make his studio debut, but he dropped out over creative differences this spring. Warner Bros. subsequently set National Treasure and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice director Jon Turteltaub to take the helm, and now cameras have begun rolling in New Zealand on the science-fiction action thriller.

Jason Statham leads the film alongside Chinese actress Li Bingbing (Forbidden Kingdom)

Turteltaub is working from a script by Dean Georgaris (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life) and Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber (Red), and the film is certainly being produced with an eye towards worldwide appeal. In addition to New Zealand, filming is also poised to take place in China, with Beijing Digital Impression serving as a producing partner on the film which already has secured distribution in China via Gravity Pictures.

The cast is decidedly international as well. Alongside Statham and Bingbing, the ensemble includes Cliff Curtis (Fear the Walking Dead), Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, Page Kennedy, Jessica McNamee, Ólafur Darris Ólafsson, Sophia Shuya Cai, and Heroes alum Masi Oka.

Turteltaub has Clint Eastwood’s frequent cinematographer Tom Stern (American Sniper, The Hunger Games) handling the photography, and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of tone Meg strikes as Turteltaub’s previous output leans heavily towards the family/kid-friendly oriented.

Meg will be released in theaters on March 2, 2018.

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