The upcoming giant shark vs Jason Statham flick THE MEG made our recent Top 10 Genre Flicks to See in Summer 2018 list and if that weren't enough of an indication for you guys, all of us here at AITH are really looking forward to checking out all the PG-13 rated over-the-top action and blood once it hits later this month. But it turns out as okay as we are with the movie's PG-13 MPAA rating, the film originally was FAR gorier, horrific, and downright creepy. But cuts were made to bring in the mass, director Jon Turtletaub tells our buddies over at B-D.
Director Jon Turteltaub:
…the number of really horrifying, disgusting and bloody deaths we had lined up that we didn’t get to do is tragic. There was some really good shit that didn’t survive to the final cut.
We shot or even did a lot of visual effects for [gory scenes]. We just realized there’s no way we’re keeping this PG-13 if we show this. It’s too fun a movie to not let people who don’t like blood and people who are under, say, 14 years old into the theater. I was very hesitant to cut out a lot of blood and gore. I wouldn’t have if I thought it was wrecking the story but it wasn’t. It still looked okay.
He then gives an example:
I don’t want to spoil too much but there was a death in the movie of one of the leading characters where you thought he was still alive and you realized it was only his head. Then the reveal that that was all that was left was awesome but needless to say quite a few people told us it was creepy and I had to cut it.
Will we ever see the extra gore in an unrated Blu-ray?
The problem nowadays with those unrated DVDs is you used to have a bunch of scenes that were easy to either shoot or leave on the cutting room floor. Now to finish a scene costs millions in VFX. No one’s going to be spending millions of dollars just to have a little extra bonus footage.
Based on the 1997 novel Meg by Steve Alten, THE MEG stars Jason Statham, Rainn Wilson, Winston Chao, Li Bingbing, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Jessica McNamee, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Robert Taylor, Cliff Curtis, Shuya Sophia Cai, and Masi Oka. Jon Turteltaub directed the film, working from a screenplay by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber.
The synopsis:
A deep-sea submersible — part of an international undersea observation program — has been attacked by a massive creature, previously thought to be extinct, and now lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest trench in the Pacific… with its crew trapped inside. With time running out, expert deep-sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor is recruited by a visionary Chinese oceanographer, against the wishes of his daughter Suyin, to save the crew — and the ocean itself — from this unstoppable threat: a pre-historic 75-foot-long shark known as the Megalodon. What no one could have imagined is that, years before, Taylor had encountered this same terrifying creature. Now, teamed with Suyin, he must confront his fears and risk his own life to save everyone trapped below… bringing him face to face once more with the greatest and largest predator of all time.
THE MEG is set to reach theatres on August 10th.