Jason Statham to take on Meg

[Spider-Fan]

I think the title The Meg is worse than if they just called it Meg

 

[Broseph44]

I could really care less about the title personally. That’s just me. With a film like this it’s not an issue for me.

 

[Teelie]

If that was nemo he can just stay lost thank you very much!

I bet the next trailer has a shadowy government individual saying something like “we have to capture it alive” or something. Like they’re going to send a megaladon into North Korea or something

If you have read the book series then you'd know how comical that sounds.

Spoiler

Because it kind of, sort of does happen, albeit not with a shadowy government entity sending it to North Korea.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

My only concern was the CGI/vfx work but it looks pretty good this far out so I'm really glad on that front. This is gonna be so much fun. Bring it on.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I don't want to be THAT guy, but...the trailer underwhelmed me

 

[green]

That trailer is absolutely ridiculous.


I kinda love it.

 

[Reel-Man]

I dig how the last shot was basically that "leaked" teaser poster we saw before bit that had a bigger boat.

Also a second poster.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

[YT]w_06KCv96Ns[/YT]

The international trailer has new footage and it's supposed to be less campy than the US one. Some folks are liking this one more.

 

[KaijuDude1992]

I dig how the last shot was basically that "leaked" teaser poster we saw before bit that had a bigger boat.

Also a second poster.

Now that is a awesome poster. That is the kind of horror related stuff I want to see when it comes to a movie like this. I also liked the international trailer more than the first one because of the more serious tone.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I dig how the last shot was basically that "leaked" teaser poster we saw before bit that had a bigger boat.

Also a second poster.

This poster excited me more for the movie than the trailer.

 

[Micromind]

Wow, looks great, I'm impressed by special effects.

 

[Teelie]

That trailer is absolutely ridiculous.


I kinda love it.

I dig how the last shot was basically that "leaked" teaser poster we saw before bit that had a bigger boat.

Also a second poster.

The international trailer has new footage and it's supposed to be less campy than the US one. Some folks are liking this one more.

I did like the second trailer more but the first one was good too though it does make it somewhat harder to know what tone they intend to go with on this movie. Obviously it won't lean too hard on serious or camp.

And I'm surprised that "leaked" poster was legit. It must have been some incomplete draft run of their final poster.

 

[Loki882]

It's Jason Statham vs. a giant prehistoric shark. I'm fine with it being campy (for the record the comparisons to Piranha 3D aren't a bad thing for me as I actually enjoyed that film) and goofy as long as it's entertaining. The premise is inherently kind of ridiculous to begin with.

As an aside, I do have a question for those who've read the book. Is Li Bingbing's character meant to be Statham's love interest here? And is little girl his daughter to?

 

[Blitzkrieg]

I did like the second trailer more but the first one was good too though it does make it somewhat harder to know what tone they intend to go with on this movie. Obviously it won't lean too hard on serious or camp.

I didn't see the 2nd trailer myself but I'm guessing that the movie won't get into borderline camp territory. I haven't read the source material but I have read elsewhere that the first 2 books have a serious tone so I don't think the movie will have an extreme departure from that.

I think that the author of the book was consulted to some extent or he was kept in the loop by the studio on their plans with the movie adaptation (Steve Alten announced the poster/trailer release on twitter or instagram). So I do think the tonal shift in the US trailer has more to do with appealing to the lowest common denominator and it isn't entirely indicative of the tone in the movie. It'll have jokes sprinkled here and there but the threat is gonna be terrifying.

 

[Loki882]

The first trailer isn't even that campy itself. The only thing is the song choice, which was clearly meant to be a "cute nod" to Finding Nemo.

 

[Lily Adler]

If Jaws is Jurassic Park of shark movies, Meg will be Jurassic World.

Bigger, louder and a lot dumber.

The female lead needs to wear heels throughout the entire movie before we can say this.

 

[Teelie]

It's Jason Statham vs. a giant prehistoric shark. I'm fine with it being campy (for the record the comparisons to Piranha 3D aren't a bad thing for me as I actually enjoyed that film) and goofy as long as it's entertaining. The premise is inherently kind of ridiculous to begin with.

As an aside, I do have a question for those who've read the book. Is Li Bingbing's character meant to be Statham's love interest here? And is little girl his daughter to?

I didn't see the 2nd trailer myself but I'm guessing that the movie won't get into borderline camp territory. I haven't read the source material but I have read elsewhere that the first 2 books have a serious tone so I don't think the movie will have an extreme departure from that.

I think that the author of the book was consulted to some extent or he was kept in the loop by the studio on their plans with the movie adaptation (Steve Alten announced the poster/trailer release on twitter or instagram). So I do think the tonal shift in the US trailer has more to do with appealing to the lowest common denominator and it isn't entirely indicative of the tone in the movie. It'll have jokes sprinkled here and there but the threat is gonna be terrifying.

The original story and sequel were more serious and in fact the entire series keeps a serious (if at one point completely bonkers plot) tone. But the movie obviously is taking a different track than the books did.

Such as...

Spoiler

The movie appears to be combining at least the first three books in that originally Jonas is married to a blonde woman, then later marries Terry (Li Bing Bing named Suyin here) and does have a daughter. The area deeper than the Marianas Trench is in fact a subterranean cavern that has stuff even more ferocious than Megs and a bizarre incest subplot involving the primary human villian of that story. Which was not even the most crazy thing in that story though certainly up there.

And I am glossing over a lot of other huge details to avoid even bigger potential spoilers from the plot of the movie itself depending on how much of it they follow, which given sequels are a regular thing, is almost a certainty they will include the first books climatic ending.

 

[gwynplaine]

Good idea to bring a little girl to the bottom of the ocean where literally monsters livet: Kidding aside, I enjoyed the books back in the day and I can't wait to see the film.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Honestly, I was hoping the trailer would be MORE campy and outrageous.

 

[nite-owl]

Looks like ridiculous fun.

 

[ironwez20]

Imagine a godzilla movie that takes place under the sea like this.

 

[Broseph44]

Now that is a awesome poster. That is the kind of horror related stuff I want to see when it comes to a movie like this. I also liked the international trailer more than the first one because of the more serious tone.

But you understand that this isn’t meant to be straight up scary horror film nor a serious film. This is really not supposed to take itself all that seriously, it’s supoised to be mindless campy fun. A fun creature feature. Are some people not understanding this? Because if they’re expecting a serious tone overall and throughout they’re setting themselves up for disappointment.

 

[Spider-Fan]

But you understand that this isn’t meant to be straight up scary horror film nor a serious film. This is really not supposed to take itself all that seriously, it’s supoised to be mindless campy fun. A fun creature feature. Are some people not understanding this? Because if they’re expecting a serious tone overall and throughout they’re setting themselves up for disappointment.

Oh, this is what I am expecting. I actually felt the trailer was TOO straight, LOL. I felt the trailer could have been whackier and more zany.

 

[Broseph44]

Oh, this is what I am expecting. I actually felt the trailer was TOO straight, LOL. I felt the trailer could have been whackier and more zany.

Oh yeah for sure they could’ve gone a little further with the camp in the trailer. Maybe with the second trailer they will. The marketing camping for this from here on out can get really creative and fun if done right.

Some people need to realize though this is not meant to be some serious scary shark films like Jaws or something along the lines of The Shallows. Like I said yesterday this is more in vein of a cross between Deep Blue Sea and Piranha.

 

[Melpardus]

I'm just learning about the Meg franchise after I saw the trailer last night. As an evolutionary biologist (in-training) and a life-long paleontology geek, the entire notion of this movie, book series, and the whole "megalodon lives" thing gives me all sorts of headaches, almost more than the Jurassic Park/World franchise does. I audibly groaned "Oh no..." when one of the scientist characters made a direct reference to tagging the megalodon and asked "haven't you seen Shark Week?" because that's a direct reference to what the "scientists" did in that garbage mockumentary that Discovery Channel did a few years back. (And I know that Shark Week is gonna try and capitalize on this, presumably in all the worst ways possible for science outreach and educational programming, so double headache for paleontologists and museum workers this summer between this and the new Jurassic World movie.)

And look, I'm not trying to come in here and ruin everybody's fun; I see this thread has been open for well over a decade and you guys genuinely seem to want to see this movie. I can respect that; I actually want to see this movie given that it exists (in spite of my hoping that it fails and kills any ideas the studio might have about trying to turn the stuff from the other books into sequels), if only because among all the predictably annoying (and boring) pop culture megalodon tropes -- being a massively oversized 75 feet long, looking like just a giant great white without any of the proportions that a fish of that size would need to efficiently move through the water, somehow managing to disappear from the fossil record for 2.5 million years and elude human detection for hundreds of thousands of years by living in the deepest parts of the ocean even though there's no way the real-life counterpart could've actually survived down there and was too specialized to adapt to those conditions, etc. -- the special effects and cinematography looks pretty good, and the action and tone seems bat**** crazy enough to be entertaining enough to make for a fun hate-watching experience. (Although I cannot guarantee that I won't walk out of the theater if this opens with a megalodon eating a Tyrannosaurus rex...)