The Meg (short for Megalodon) is the latest in a recent run of highly successful summer shark movies. Starting back n 2016 with The Shallows starring Blake Lively trapped on a rock and circled by a Great White shark the film went on to make $119m worldwide not bad considering it only cost $17m to make. Summer 2017 saw ‘47 Metres Down‘ a film starring pop poppet Mandy Moore trapped in a age on the sea bed with her oxygen tank running ever lower. It made $44m which might not seem much but as it only cost $5.5m to make its pretty impressive.
So summer 2018 ramps things up with The Meg trailer starring The Stath aka Jason Statham though for once he’s unlikely to be punching and kicking to death a huge prehistoric shark thought to have been extinct for millions of years. The film been on the verge of being made for several years with director Eli Roth rumoured to have almost signed on to direct.
Instead Jon Turteltaub directs The Meg – a bit of a left field choice as his previous films have included the pensioner-tastic ‘Last Vegas’ but in fairness also made the action fest National Treasure films.
Filling out the cast is Ruby Rose (John Wick 2) plays the improbably named scientist Jaxx Herd which seems as credible as Denise Richards’ Dr Christmas Jones in James Bond film The World is not Enough. Perhaps here Ms Rose, whose immense number of tattoos will include mathematical equations, will be a character trait……but we doubt it. Rainn Wilson seems to be the comic relief though frankly he’s a bit irritating in the trailer. That’s about it on the name front but the cast credit list also includes Bingbing Li & Masi Oka which sound more like takeaway dishes than actors.
Unlike the two previous movies The Meg has a huge budget of $150m so will need to do big business to make a profit but the Meg trailer looks fun so we’ll see on August 10th when the film is released.
Here’s The Meg trailer…….
