Jason Statham Says The Meg Sequel Will Start Shooting Next Year

Following the coronavirus pandemic causing a number of complications in Hollywood, both with movie releases and productions, The Meg star Jason Statham offered an update on the announced sequel, teasing that the new film could head into production early in 2022. While the film doesn’t yet have a release date, Statham’s comments imply that it’s merely a matter of getting everyone’s schedules to align, especially given how many complications 2020 caused, with the immense undertaking of bringing the monstrous shark-thriller to life surely featuring a number of moving pieces. The Meg sequel is set to be directed by Ben Wheatley while writers Jon and Erich Hoeber and Dean Georgaris are said to have worked on the script for the sequel.

“We’re gonna start shooting in January, if I get my dates right,” Statham shared with Collider. “Ben Wheatley is the director, I’m very excited to work with him. I’m thrilled to get going, it’s been a while. We’ve been waiting around for the right scripts to come in and the right director to turn up, and we’ve got all those things and they’re all stacked up now.”

He added, “[Wheatley’s] great. We have a great shorthand already. We’ve got similar taste. I like his movies, I think he’s a brilliant director. I think we’ve got a good shot at making something good.”

What makes audiences so excited for the new film is that it’s set to be a major blockbuster, while Wheatley has previously delivered stories with indie sensibilities. The filmmaker recently revealed what his approach to the bigger scale would be.

“A lot of it is respecting The Meg, and trying to make sure it’s a great Meg film,” Wheatley shared with ComicBook.com about the new film. “And as you can see from the movies I’ve made, they’re not necessarily, it’s not … when you go and do Doctor Who, I don’t completely change it because I wanted to do it. I didn’t want to necessarily make it something completely different that nobody recognized, you know? So there’s that element of back and forth.”

He continued, “But it’s an opportunity to do action on such an insanely large scale, that it’s just unbelievable. From doing Free Fire, which was, I thought, was all my Christmases came at once in terms of action, this is just unbelievable. And just doing the storyboards for it, just thinking and going, ‘Oh,’ it’s just … I feel a heavy responsibility for it, to make sure that it kind of delivers on all the, to all the big shark fans out there.”

Stay tuned for details on The Meg sequel.

Are you looking forward to the new film? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!