As a Chinese co-production, Meg 2: The Trench was always going to sink or swim based on its performance in the country, and it’s just as well the latter has proven to be true after it ended up disappointing domestically.
Jason Statham’s second battle against giant prehistoric sharks has struggled to a mere $57 million domestically since premiering two weeks ago, but the possibility of Meg 3 continues to grow stronger thanks to an overseas performance that should comfortably push it past $300 million all told.
In fact, with The Trench set to cross $100 million from China alone tomorrow, it’ll become just the sixth Hollywood movie to reach nine figures in the nation since COVID came along and marked a paradigm shift in terms of how American-backed epics are greeted by local moviegoers.
Of course, the presence of local megastar Wu Jing in a key role certainly helped give his own multi-billion dollar track record as a proven draw, but the first Meg did also perform exceedingly well in China, so it stood to reason that the second installment would, too.
A Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of just 28 percent makes director Ben Wheatley’s first jump into the arena of big budget studio fare the worst-reviewed follow-up to hit the multiplex this summer – and all year, if you want to split hairs – but that hasn’t done a damn thing to dissuade audiences in China from making a point of watching the toothy carnage unfold in huge numbers week after week.