Working closely with our Writer’s Lifeline Service, Steve brought his vision to the page and later to the silver screen. Steve Alten has written countless hits such as The Loch (2005), Domain, or the Mayan Prophecy (2001), and The Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (1997) which was adapted into the 2018 film The Meg starring Jason Statham.
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Professional prehistoric shark-puncher, Jason Statham reveals that the sequel to the aquatic monster movie is set to start filming next January.
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Don Kaye is an entertainment journalist by trade and geek by natural design. Born in New York City, currently ensconced in Los Angeles, his earliest childhood memory is…
From Kill List to Sightseers to A Field in England to Rebecca, filmmaker Ben Wheatley has delivered audiences a variety of experiences, with one constant component being an intimate experience that leans heavily into characters, which has fans wondering what to expect from his upcoming sequel to The Meg. The Jason Statham-starring film had a reported budget between $130 and $180 million, with even the low end of those estimates dwarfing the budgets of any of Wheatley's previous films. Wheatley recently shared his enthusiasm for the upcoming sequel and how, first and foremost, his plans are to honor the scope of the titular beast.
"A lot of it is respecting The Meg, and trying to make sure it's a great Meg film," Wheatley shared with ComicBook.com about the new film. "And as you can see from the movies I've made, they're not necessarily, it's not ... when you go and do Doctor Who, I don't completely change it because I wanted to do it. I didn't want to necessarily make it something completely different that nobody recognized, you know? So there's that element of back and forth."
He continued, "But it's an opportunity to do action on such an insanely large scale, that it's just unbelievable. From doing Free Fire, which was, I thought, was all my Christmases came at once in terms of action, this is just unbelievable. And just doing the storyboards for it, just thinking and going, 'Oh,' it's just ... I feel a heavy responsibility for it, to make sure that it kind of delivers on all the, to all the big shark fans out there."
The original film was based on the novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, and focused on a prehistoric megalodon being discovered in the deepest parts of the ocean, who then came to the surface to wreak havoc. The film went on to earn $530.2 million worldwide, with details on the sequel's story being kept under wraps.
As we wait for updates on The Meg sequel, fans can check out Wheatley's latest film, In the Earth.
In the film, "As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. Through the night, their journey becomes a terrifying voyage through the heart of darkness, the forest coming to life around them."
Warner Bros. is going back in the water for another bite.
The studio has set filmmaker Ben Wheatley, whose updated version of Gothic tale Rebecca debuted this week, to direct the sequel to its 2018 giant shark thriller hit, The Meg.
Much of key talent from the first movie is expected to return, including Jason Statham, who is said to be creatively involved. Jon and Erich Hoeber wrote the most recent draft working off an initial draft by Dean Georgaris (all three shared credit on the intial outting). Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Belle Avery are back as producers.
Meg starred as Statham as a shark expert who fights tooth and nail against a giant prehistoric shark called a megalodon. Jon Turteltaub, known for the National Treasure movies, directed the movie, which proved to be a worldwide hit, chomping its way to $530.3 million globally. The movie, an adaptation of the novel by Steve Alten, was a Chinese co-production and saw Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson and Ruby Rose round out the cast.
Catherine Ying, Li Ruigang, E. Bennett Walsh, Gerald Molen and Randy Greenberg are exec producing.
Wheatley is a British filmmaker with a penchant for the dark and satirically skewed. He has racked up awards for his horror and crime movies such as Sightseers and Kill List, with each directorial outing working its way up the budgetary and acting ranks. He generated buzz for the 2015 dystopian thriller High Rise, which starred Tom Hiddleston and Jeremy Irons, and followed that up with action comedy Free Fire, which starred Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy and Armie Hammer. Wheatley reteamed with the latter for Rebecca, which also stars Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas, and is one of Netflix’s big movies of the fall season.
Read more at The Hollywood Reporter
Jason Statham has been a regular fixture on our screens for over two decades now, but in the last few years, he’s enjoyed the most box office success of his career, largely due to his involvement in the Expendables and Fast and Furious franchises. Before that, the 53 year-old reigned for a long time as the king of the B-level action movie, churning out a series of formulaic genre flicks that were never anything less than watchable. But his career has really reached a whole new level as of late.
While a scene-stealing supporting role in Paul Feig’s Spy revealed a superb comic talent hidden underneath the rough exterior, Statham has tended to rely on his unique blend of gruff charisma to sell his personal brand, and it’s worked wonders for him. As a former competitive diver that represented his country at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, the Snatch star is obviously no stranger to the water, either, and that experience came in pretty handy when he headlined 2018 blockbuster The Meg.
National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub’s giant shark movie isn’t designed to engage the brain, but as an enjoyably preposterous piece of big budget entertainment, it definitely does the job. Jaws it most certainly isn’t, but it nonetheless ticks all of the boxes that you’d expect from a PG-13 effort armed with a budget of $150 million and populated almost entirely by recognizable but hardly A-list actors.
Audiences seemed to get a kick out of it, too, as The Meg wound up earning over $530 million at the box office, and a sequel is unsurprisingly said to be in the works. Netflix subscribers are loving it just as much as well it seems, as the enjoyable slice of mindless escapism is currently the ninth most popular title on the streaming service across the entire world today, with tons of people no doubt digging all the thrills it has to offer up.
