‘The Meg 2’ To Be Directed By ‘Rebecca’ And ‘Kill List’ Filmmaker Ben Wheatley
Ben Wheatleyis about to take a swim.
The director of such varied projects asSightseersand Netflix’s newRebeccaremake has been hired by Warner Bros. to directThe Meg 2, a follow-up to the studio’s 2018 giant shark movie. StarJason Stathamis expected to return to lead the cast once again, but man…Ben Wheatley directing a big-budget studio shark film? What an odd choice.
According toThe Hollywood Reporter, Ben Wheatley is going to beThe Meg 2director. The British filmmaker made a name for himself with stylish genre-centric indie movies like 2011’sKill List(one of the most unsettling films of this century), the psychedelicA Field in England, the drenched-in-mood adaptation ofHigh-Rise, and a frenetic, shootout-filled thriller calledFree Fire. For years, he seemed like the type of filmmaker who would be off in a corner, making small, interesting movies that no one else could make.
But over the past couple of years, he’s started to inch closer and closer to the mainstream. Most recently, he directed Netflix’sRebecca, an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic romance novel. But while handsomely shot, that didn’tfeellike a Ben Wheatley movie – it didn’t have any of his sense of humor or the deranged energy he brought to so many previous projects. And he was alsohired to directTomb Raider 2, a sequel to the unremarkable film reboot starring Alicia Vikander. That sequel was originally supposed to come out in March of next year, but we haven’t heard much about it since Wheatley was hired to direct it. Is he still involved with the further adventures of Lara Croft, or has he abandoned the video game movie entirely for the shark-infested waters ofThe Meg 2?
WB haswanted aThe Megsequelever since the original movie started raking in cash at the worldwide box office. Lucky for them, the novel on which the first film is based has a sequel novel that’s already been published. It’s calledThe Trench, and here’s the plot synopsis:
Four years after the incident at the Mariana Trench that unleashed a pregnant Megaladon, Jonas Taylor now houses her one surviving offspring at the Tanaka Institute. Deep in debt, Taylor has turned to an eccentric billionaire to help keep the institute afloat, but it doesn’t come without a price. Drawn into a web of deceit and lies, plagued by nightmares of his own death, Taylor must once again face frightening monsters of unimaginable power. Only this time, it’s not just the sharks he has to watch out for.
Dean Georgariswrote an initial draft of the sequel’s screenplay, and the latest draft was written byJonandErich Hoeber– all three of whom have writing credits on the original movie.
