Giant Shark Thriller The Meg Has Franchise Potential, According To Jason Statham

There’s something in the water, and it’s bigger than you could possibly imagine.

We are, of course, referring to The Meg, the Jon Turteltaub-directed thriller in which Jason Statham comes face-to-face with a prehistoric megalodon shark spanning 75ft in length. That’s…big.

A typical great white shark can grow to around 20ft, and even that’s considered rare. So it almost goes without saying that Turteltaub and his team plan to up the ante quite considerably this summer, when The Meg will make Jaws seem like small fry by comparison.

Not only that, but after releasing a pair of trailers, Warner’s giant shark thriller has the potential to spawn an entire franchise. Or so says Jason Statham, who spoke to Entertainment Weekly (h/t Bloody Disgusting) ahead of the movie’s August release.

I think it’s like anything in this day and age — if it makes money, there’s obviously an appetite to make more money. And if it doesn’t do well, they’ll soon sweep it under the carpet. But that’s the way Hollywood works. Everyone tries to make a good film, and it lies in the hands of the audience. People are the ultimate decider; the audience is the decider of whether anything gets to be a sequel or not.

Angled as a loose adaptation of Steve Alten’s Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, the deep-sea thriller has all the makings of a guilty pleasure – think Dwayne Johnson’s Rampage, only with one giant, impossibly large shark instead of three mutated creatures. However, whether it can make enough money to warrant a sequel is another question entirely…

Also starring Ruby Rose, Li Bingbing, Cliff Curtis and Page Kennedy, The Meg makes a beeline for the shallows (and theaters!) on August 10th.