Last summer it was announced that director Eli Roth had signed on the make the big-budget screen adaption of Steve Alten’s novel series Meg, based on the screen play by Dean Georgaris for Warner Bros. News has come that Roth has stepped away from the project and will be replaced by Jon Turteltaub, the director behind films such as National Treasure, 3 Ninjas and Cool Runnings. Word is Roth left the project due to possible budget concerns, but the exact details have not been revealed at this time.
Eli Roth
The novel series follows a deep sea diver named Jonas Taylor. Taylor believes that a prehistoric Megalodon is alive and lurking in the Mariana Trench. The giant shark has escaped the temperature barrier that has kept it prisoner for so long. Now ‘Meg’ is loose in the waters of the California coast. It has been said the film adaption of Meg will follow a hunt for a killer Megalodon that is terrorizing the coast of China, but details of the film’s plot have not been confirmed.
To be honest, I am disappointed. As a fan of Roth, I was really looking to his adaption. With Turteltaub’s record of making “family friendly” films, I wonder if he can bring a giant man-eating shark to life and it still come across as a horror film.