Meg 2: The Trench Gets Release Date

Warner Bros. recently announced a slate of release dates for highly anticipated films, which included the confirmation that the sequel Meg 2: The Trench is set to land in theaters on August 4, 2023. The original The Meg had a long and complicated road to release, so the wait for this sequel ultimately taking five years shouldn’t take audiences too much by surprise, especially given that the coronavirus pandemic upended the entire entertainment industry. Recent reports note that the film headed into production earlier this year, with the confirmation of this release date boding well for the progress on the follow-up film.

The new film will be directed by In the Earth and Kill List director Ben Wheatley and will see Jason Statham returning to reprise his role from the debut outing. Other returning stars include Cliff Curtis, Sophia Cai, and Page Kennedy, while the sequel has added newcomers to the franchise Sienna Guillory of the Resident Evil film series, Skyler Samuels of FOX’s The Gifted, and Sergio Peris-Mencheta of Snowfall.

The original film was based on the 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror by author Steve Alten. While that book has its own novel sequels, it’s unknown if those book sequels will be the inspiration for the cinematic follow-up. What also makes audiences excited for the new film is Wheatley applying his filmmaking sensibilities to the picture, given that most of his previous efforts are in the independent space.

“A lot of it is respecting The Meg, and trying to make sure it’s a great Meg film,” Wheatley shared with ComicBook.com last year 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 Meg 2: The Trench before it hits theaters on August 4, 2023.

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!