It’s incredibly rare these days for a big studio to produce a good old-fashioned B movie. We’re talking the type of flick that’s cheesy on purpose, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and offers outsized thrills. The Meg is all of these things, but unlike the B movies of yesteryear, it actually has a budget.
The $150 million shark extravaganza from Warner Bros. has just released its first trailer, and it’s everything we hoped it would be. Cheeky jokes from a bumbling sidekick (The Office‘s Rainn Wilson), a mildly self-aware old school action star hero (Jason Statham), and of course, the biggest shark we’ve ever seen on camera. Seriously, the film’s megalodon — an actual type of massive prehistoric shark, made even larger for the film — could swallow Bruce from Jaws in a single bite, as evidenced by the film’s new Jaws-taunting poster.
The trailer definitely doesn’t skimp on the thrills, as it shows the megalogon — or “The Meg” — eating a giant squid, knocking over a large boat, and standing up to machine gun fire from a helicopter; among other things. The film is directed by Jon Turteltaub, who previously helmed such cheesy goodness as Think Big, 3 Ninjas, Cool Runnings, Instinct, and National Treasure. The film’s story, like Jaws, is based on a novel, in this case Steve Alten’s Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror. Alten’s book spawned a series of six sequels, each more absurd than the last, so hopefully the film can find success and follow a similar path. You can check out the trailer below.
The Meg chomps its way into theaters right in the thick of beach-going season on August 10.
