Warner Bros. has just announced that Meg 2: The Trench, director Ben Wheatley’s sequel to Jon Turteltaub’s 2018 movie that pit Jason Statham against giant sharks, will swim into theaters in 2023.
Meg 2: The Trench was written by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber, the same writing team behind the first film (review). Both films are inspired by the novel series written by Steve Alten (interview).
Jason Statham returns along with co-stars Cliff Curtis, Shuya Sophia Cai, and Page Kennedy, as well as Sienna Guillory (Resident Evil: Apocalypse), Sergio Peris-Mencheta (Rambo: Last Blood), Skyler Samuels (The Gifted), and Wu Jing (Wolf Warrior II). Li Bingbing will not be returning for the sequel.
“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!’ Wheatley told Collider.
“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.”
In the first movie, a group of scientists exploring the Marianas Trench encounter the largest marine predator that has ever existed – the Megalodon.
Meg 2: The Trench swims into theaters on April 4, 2023. Here’s a look back at the first film’s trailer.
