After the success of shark movies The Shallows and 47 Metres Down there followed the mega-budgeted monster shark movie The Meg which earned a huge $530m worldwide and a sequel is about to start shooting at Warner brothers Leavesden Studios has two water tanks, one exterior and one located in D Stage. Meg 2 filming started on the 24th January 2022.
Provisionally titled Meg 2 : The Trench shooting will run until late May 2022 with British director Ben Wheatley calling the shots from a screenplay written by Jon and Erich Hoeber with Dean Georgaris based on Steve Alten’s original novel published in 1997. Jason Statham returns to reprise his role of the formerly disgraced diver Jonas Taylor with other key cast also reportedly set to return.
The first film was shot mostly in Auckland, New Zealand between two harbours and was the first major feature to use Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf as a filming location. Around 50 marine vessels were used over the course of the water-based part of the shoot, which ran for approx 29 days. Read our review of the first film HERE
We love a shark movie and we like Ben Wheatley’s films many of which have been in the horror genre although his last was a remake of Rebecca so it will be intersting to see what he does with a franchise film with a big budget. Though this is likely to be all CGI shark we spoke with the director of ‘Great White‘ about the issues of using an animatronic shark – watch it HERE
