By Danny F. Santos (doddleNEWS)
There are certain films that have been in development so long that I’m shocked when they finally go into production. This is exactly the case of Meg, based on the book of the same name by author Steve Alten, which has been in development for the better part of two decades.
We have a director in Jon Turteltaub and star Jason Statham as lead character Jonas Taylor along with Chinese actress Fan Bingbing. Now they’ve added two more actors to the film with Jessica McNamee cast as the female lead of the film and Ruby Rose as a character named Jaxx.
It’s not clear who McNamee will be playing in the film, but, depending on how close the film adheres to the novel, it’s possible she could be playing Jonas’s estranged wife, Maggie. That’s not a done deal as the character Jaxx is a brand new one who doesn’t appear in the book and is described as a “kick-ass engineering genius and member of the marine research team” so McNamee could be playing a completely new character.
The plot has also been changed from Jonas being recruited by an old Japanese friend to recover an unmanned submersible in the Mariana Trench to rescuing a manned Chinese led underwater program trapped at the bottom of the trench. Here’s the actual plot synopsis:
“An international underwater observation program, led by Chinese scientists, is under attack by an unknown danger, and its deep-sea submersible lies disabled and trapped at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. With time running out, former Naval Captain and expert deep sea diver Jonas Taylor (Statham) is recruited by Dr. Zhang Suyin, lead oceanographer of the program, for what is likely a suicide mission.
“Years before, Taylor had encountered this same terrifying threat, which forced him to abort his mission and abandon half his crew, resulting in disgrace and a dishonorable discharge. Now, Taylor must confront his fears and risk his own life to save everyone trapped below … bringing him face to face once more with the apex predator of all time.”
Sounds to me like a new plot thread is being added with Jaxx at the bottom of the sea trying to keep the place running long enough for Jonas to rescue them. It’ll be interesting to see exactly what the structure of the film will be since a large portion of the novel takes place outside of the Mariana Trench (in and around California and Hawaii), so it could be that the rescue mission was added to lengthen the amount of time the spend under water. It is very similar to the 1999 book sequel by Alten, The Trench, which takes place in an underwater facility.
Meg will go into production in China and New Zealand later this year, and will premiere in theaters on March 2, 2018.
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