The words ‘Jason Statham’ and ‘realistic’ are seldom uttered in the same sentence, but this film might delete the word from his vocabulary entirely.

The Meg takes “big” summer movies to the next level, with a classic “Jason Statham versus-a-mega-shark” action flick based on Steve Alten’s 1997 novel – a true writer’s read.

Forbes took the first bite:

Yes, this is a big four-quadrant blockbuster adventure, it’s even rated PG-13 (alas), but WB [Warner Bros.] and (many) friends will have to hope that audiences want to see Statham fighting a pre-historic 75-foot-long Megalodon more than they want to see Statham beating up or shooting bad guys.

True that. I rather liked watching him fight against humans, but this is quite the opposite.

Trailer time:

I guess there’s something interesting about a B-movie actor up against a ship-sized shark. Almost as much of a brain-feed as “The Rock versus Earthquake”.

The film was greenlit with San Andreas ($155m domestic/$474m worldwide in 2015) in mind, and a cast that might bring something to the table:

Statham will be joined by Jessica McNamee, Li Binging, Cliff Curtis, Ruby Rose and Rainn Wilson, so the cast will certainly be of interest.

The dude that’s bringing the mega-shark to virtual life is not other than Jon Turtletaub – the same guy that gave us the National Treasure series before a very underrated popcorn inducer called The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in 2010. His last piece of work before The Meg was the super successful Las Vegas, which clocked $134 million on a $28 million budget.

Quite different to the $150 million it took to produce Jaws’ great-grandfather:

[A]t that cost, it’s going to have to be a pretty big fish in a pretty big pond in order to qualify as a hit.

You know what? I think they may have nailed the tone on this one. And with millions of people that love fantasising about everyone around them being chowed by a Megalodon, why not make a film about it?

[source:forbes]