The Warner Bros. presentation at CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners, is currently in progress, and as part of the presentation they showed attendees the first trailer for Meg 2: The Trench, director Ben Wheatley’s sequel to Jon Turteltaub’s 2018 “Jason Statham vs. a giant shark” movie The Meg (watch it at THIS LINK).
JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray was in attendance to see the trailer, and this is what he had to say about it: “First trailer: We see footage of The Meg killing dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Looks much more expensive than the last movie. Jonas (Jason Statham) is sent into the trench the deal with whatever creature is down there – which of course is The Meg! Wu Jing, from Wolf Warrior, is a co-star. This version of The Meg is bigger because it’s an Apex predator. It escapes The Trench and starts eating people. The Meg is joined by a ton of other creatures from the trench including other Megs, and Statham takes them on with a jet-ski while Heart’s ‘Barracuda’ plays in the background. Definitely looks fun.“
The screenplay for Meg 2: The Trench has been written by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber, the same writing team that was on the first film. These films are inspired by a series of novels written by Steve Alten.
Statham is joined in the cast of the sequel by returning co-stars Cliff Curtis, Shuya Sophia Cai, and Page Kennedy, as well as Sienna Guillory (Resident Evil: Apocalypse), Skyler Samuels (The Gifted), Sergio Peris-Mencheta (Rambo: Last Blood), and, as Bumbray mentioned, Wu Jing (Wolf Warrior II). Li Bingbing isn’t reprising the role of oceanographer Suyin in this movie, despite the fact that Shuya Sophia Cai’s character Meiying is the young daughter of Suyin.
Wheatley told Collider last year that he chose to direct Meg 2 because he “really loved” the first film.
I usually just go with my gut, so if something comes across from my agent and I like it, then I just go for it. So this came up and I just went, ‘Oh, Christ! Meg 2, I’ll do that! That’s brilliant!’
Speaking with ComicBook.com, Wheatley said he was also interested in the project because
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 to all the big shark fans out there.”
Wheatley’s previous credits include Down Terrace, Kill List, Sightseers, A Field in England, High-Rise, Free Fire, Rebecca, and In the Earth.
Warner Bros. will be giving Meg 2: The Trench a theatrical release on August 4, 2023 – and with that date being so close, it shouldn’t be much longer before we get to see the trailer for ourselves.