Greta Gerwig’s Barbie might be taking the majority of the credit for dragging Warner Bros.’ profit margins out of the doghouse this year – which is entirely fair seeing as it passed $1.4 billion worldwide this weekend – but Meg 2: The Trench has shown some mighty impressive legs of its own.
Domestic audiences may not have cared all that much, with Jason Statham’s giant shark sequel arriving on VOD only three weeks after it premiered in United States theaters, but director Ben Wheatley’s incredibly uninteresting fantasy has proven to be a sensation everywhere else.
Doing its part to save WB’s bacon, another stellar frame overseas has seen Meg 2 close in on $385 million worldwide. For comparison, the current running total of the DCEU’s Blue Beetle and The Flash combined is around $382 million, a development that would have seemed unthinkable not just at the beginning of the year, but from the second the review embargo lifted to anoint The Trench as the worst-reviewed big budget and effect-heavy follow-up of 2023 thanks to its entirely merited Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 29 percent.
Naturally, this means the chances of Statham’s Jonas Taylor being invited for a third preposterous adventure on the high seas are growing higher and higher by the day, and WB even has the cushion of knowing that if paying customers on home soil couldn’t care less whether it happens or not, there’s an international appetite that could best be described as unexpectedly voracious. For the several of you out there hoping for The Meg 3, you could very well be in luck.