'Meg' Shark Movie Release Date News: Warner Bros. Moves Premiere from March to August 2018
Originally set for a March 2, 2018 premiere, the upcoming action-packed shark movie "Meg," which is distributed by Warner Bros., is pushed back to a later release date now pegged at Aug. 10, 2018.
The reason for the delay is not specified, but its schedule now coincides with Universal's remake of the Al Pacino 1983 crime film, "Scarface."
"Meg" is a movie based on Steve Alten's 1997 science-fiction novel titled "Meg: A Novel in Deep Terror," which details deep sea diver Jonas Taylor's encounter with a 70-foot, 60,000-pound Great White Shark beneath the Mariana Trench while on a deep-sea rescue mission. The big shark was called a Carcharodon Megalodon.
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In the movie, Jason Statham ("The Expendables") takes on the role of Jonas, and just like in the novel, he was tasked to go on a deep sea underwater mission in the Mariana Trench to save Chinese scientists from the Carcharodon Megalodon.
Jonas had already encountered the sea predator before but now he has to face it once again to save lives - and hopefully make up for his mistake of abandoning half his crew when he first encountered the shark.
In real life, the Megalodon species is known to be extinct. However, in the novel, it is shown that some survived due to a barrier of cold water trapped in the Mariana Trench.
The Chinese scientists in the movie who were attacked by the predator were leading an international observation program when their deep-sea submersible malfunctioned and trapped them underwater.
Alongside Statham, the movie also stars Jessica McNamee ("Dancing with the Stars"), Chinese star Li Bingbing ("The Forbidden Kingdom"), Ruby Rose ("John Wick: Chapter 2"), Rainn Wilson ("The Boy"), Cliff Curtis ("The Last Airbender") and Robert Taylor ("The Matrix") among others.
It is directed by Jon Turteltaub ("National Treasure") and produced by Warner Bros., Flagship Entertainment and Gravity Pictures. The film had a reported budget of $150 million.
"Meg" will premiere in China at an earlier date on February 2018, while its worldwide release follows the August 2018 date currently set by Warner Bros.
