The Meg 2 Producer Promises More Creatures, Shark Attacks, and an Even Bigger Bite of Humor
22Jason Statham - Shark Puncher. That's the sort of four-word pitch that gets studios to say yes to something. It's up there with "Snakes on a plane." or "Margot Robbie is Barbie." in terms of well let's just do that right now. The Meg was something of a sleeper hit when it came out, grossing a staggering $530 million worldwide off a budget estimated between $130-150 million, and it garnered a cult following. Based on the 1997 Steve Alten novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, Statham played rescue diver Jonas Taylor who comes face to face with a megalodon, a prehistoric gigantic shark.
To be blunt, the film was preposterous nonsense, and that's a good thing. Statham's natural charisma carried it a long way, but a criticism of the film was that it wasn't quite as fun as it should be - that's something producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura was keen to rectify when it came to Meg 2: The Trench, the somewhat-delayed sequel which sees Statham return for round 2. Speaking with Collider's Steve Weintraub while promoting his latest film, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and asked the producer about how the sequel had been performing in testing as well as what he was anticipating from its release in cinemas. He shared:
"It's really held its appeal, so in making this movie, one of the things we learned is you could add more comedy than we originally thought in a shark movie, in a way. So I think this movie is probably funnier. There's certainly some big laughs in it. There's more shark attacks. There's more crazy ideas that we've tested out on the audience. So the movie, it's testing well, but more importantly, the audience seems to be relating to it very similar to the first movie."
But Does He Punch a Shark?
A question did remain, however—how would the MPAA react to the increased number of shark attacks? According to Di Bonaventura, a lack of gore is helpful in getting them to buy into the lightheartedness, allowing for that more lucrative PG-13 rating. "They push back on the blood. As long as you don't do gore, they sort of accept the fun nature of it, you know? And I think because of the fun nature, it takes the edge off it a little bit," he explained.
"But at the same time, the movie needs to have some edge, or else it feels like it becomes a spoof or something, and that's definitely not what it is. So, I think the trickiest thing about The Meg is keeping that balance between violence and humor."
Based on the box office return of the first film, and the hopes for the second, you could forgive Di Bonaventura and Warner Bros., its distributing studio, for thinking they had a franchise on which they could bank. Not so, according to the producer. Diplomatically admitting there "could be" more fun stories to tell, he admitted they would need to find a fresh way of telling the story, lest they ruin the audience's goodwill and outstay their welcome.
"I think the challenge will be how to find, in a way, another underwater world to explore. My gut says that's the thing we'll need to figure out so it doesn't feel like you're going to the same place over and over again. This time we go so much more time there, so it feels different. You're really in there for a long stretch of the movie, so you get to know it, in a way, and you run into structures that people don't know are down there, and things that are gonna surprise you and surprise the characters. But I think a third time there might feel like we're overstaying our welcome. So I think that'll be the task the next time is to figure out what is that next underwater experience that you want to find?"
Despite all the exciting talk of the shark attacks, the humor, the blood, and the gore—the fundamental question remains: will we see Statham punch a shark in this film? Di Bonaventura is keeping his cards close, saying, "Well, not exactly, but maybe we top that idea. He might tap in a really violent way. He kicks a shark!"
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