The aquatic thriller MEG will hopefully take the torch of awesome shark movies from THE SHALLOWS and prove that the genre is still alive and swimming. So far, it seems like it'll be some good popcorn fun, because who wouldn't go see a movie where Jason Statham fights a gargantuan sea creature?
But I've got news that makes MEG even more exciting: Rainn Wilson has joined the cast. The Office star might seem like a strange choice for such an adrenaline-fueled flick, but since the NBC sitcom ended, he's been making a name for himself in weird, alternative genre pictures like COOTIES or Craig Macneill's THE BOY.
Wilson will be playing Jack Morris, "a tech billionaire who funds an underwater observation program that unwittingly unleashes the Carcharodon megalodon – a 70-foot, 40-ton prehistoric cousin of the great white." Dwight Schrute turned John Hammond? I'm in. Let's see where this goes.
Directed by Jon Turteltaub and based on the 1997 novel by Steve Alten, MEG will center on
an international underwater observation program, led by Chinese scientists, which comes under attack by an unknown danger. With its deep-sea submersible disabled and trapped at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, they need rescue. A former naval captain and expert deep-sea diver is recruited for a likely suicide mission — even though he faced the predator years before and was forced him to abort his mission and abandon half his crew.
In addition to Statham and Wilson, MEG will star Ruby Rose, Fan Bingbing, and Jessica McNamee.
A co-production of Warner Bros. and China-based Gravity Pictures, MEG will hit theaters on March 2, 2018.