Well wouldn’t ya know it, but a movie featuring Jason Statham going toe-to-toe with a massive, prehistoric shark was a gigantic hit around the world. Audiences swam up in droves to check out the big-budgeted shark flick this summer, and after a large opening weekend and strong, consistent business talk of a sequel began to surface. Though nothing is official the movie’s executive producer, Catherine Xujun Ying, confirmed that a follow-up is certainly in the works.
[SEE MORE]
The news comes out of the U.S.-China Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles (via Variety), and Ying told a crowd of attendees that though a sequel was in the “very early stages” we can still expect to see another giant set of teeth on the horizon.
“It’s still very early stages right now, but we’re working or starting to work on it. We’d like to keep it a secret at this time.”
Warner Bros. has yet to greenlight a sequel, but at this point, it’s all a matter of time. The movie opened to a stunning $45 million opening weekend, chomping its way to $142 million domestically and $548 million worldwide. This makes it the highest-grossing Sino-American co-production in history after it trounced the $521 million total of KUNG FU PANDA 3. As well, the movie was based on the book by Steve Alten, coming from a series of five books, so there’s plenty of material to dive into.
Director Jon Turtletaub was also in attendance, and he talked about how no one believed in the project, with many thinking it would flounder on arrival and be a financial disaster for everyone involved.
“We were being laughed at by a lot of people for making this movie. Before it came out, the tracking was horrible," he said. "They were saying this is a huge mistake, Warner Brothers has blown it, China is done.”
[SEE MORE]
No one is laughing now, especially considering this movie made more than SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (by about $200 million) and two major Dwayne Johnson blockbusters (RAMPAGE, SKYSCRAPER). In fact, not only was the movie big enough to warrant a sequel, Ying even hinted at theme park attractions inspired by the movie, hinting they hope "China will have the first Jurassic aquarium." I have no idea what she was alluding to there, but it sounds like the perfect title for JURASSIC WORLD 3.