If you thought Barbie lacked a little bite, don’t worry, a certain prehistoric shark is swimming its way back into theatres this weekend.
Jason Statham returns in Meg 2: The Trench, the sequel to the 2018 original, which grossed over $500 million (£393 million) worldwide.
Because it was such a hit, a sequel couldn’t be long following, with High Rise’s Ben Wheatley now at the helm of the prehistoric action-adventure.
In the sequel, Statham’s ex-Marine takes on yet another long-thought-extinct Megalodon that chooses to take a break from the depths of the Mariana trench, accompanied by other horrific animals.
The fact that The Meg has spawned a sequel will come as no surprise to long-time fans of the franchise, as the road map for sequels was already laid out in the source material; a series of deep-diving adventure novels by Steve Alten, who spoke about the franchise’s past and future on both the screen and the page.
Alten, 63, launched The Meg franchise in 1997 with the release of the first novel, Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror. From there, it was a lengthy path to the big screen, with the likes of Guillermo del Toro and Eli Roth coming and going – but a good shark project can’t be stopped.
From Jaws to Deep Blue Sea, there has always been a fascination with those black-eyed fish with keen jaws, which Alten developed at an early age.
‘When I was younger. I used to love to read, you know, picture books with dinosaurs and marine reptiles, and I know that the marine reptiles were always the ones that were much cooler to me because they had these sharp teeth, and that’s before I even learned about the big shark that came around the Miocene period over 30 million years ago.’
Like most of us, he became obsessed with sharks after reading Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws and seeing Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film adaptation.
‘I read Jaws when I was 15 and then decided I wanted to read as much as I could about real shark attacks and real great whites.
There was always a little blurb with a black and white photo of scientists sitting in a big jaw on the Smithsonian and that led me to the Megalodon.’
The astonishing vision of a massive set of gnashers may have captured the young Alten’s interest, causing him to learn more about the Megalodon, but with little more to study at the time, the Meg withdrew to the depths of his imagination, only to be reawakened some 20 years later.
After pursuing a career in sports administration and coaching, Alten was captivated by a Time Magazine article showcasing an Anglerfish on the cover, with the article delving even deeper into the mysterious world beneath the depths, particularly the Mariana trench.
‘Here was this 1,500-mile long, 40-mile wide, seven-mile deep gorge that was unexplored,’ Alten explains.
‘And if there were hydrothermal events in it which I was pretty sure there was, it just made sense to me that if you got all this mineralized hot water it’s rising out at the bottom at some point. It’s going to coagulate and form a ceiling of soot above it. Which would seal in the warmth and so that’s what I wrote about,’ – an ideal concept for envisioning a world where long-thought-extinct species could survive.
While this is a work of fiction, Alten does his homework, and the concept of living forms that deep in the water has become less of a speculative dream since his first novel was released in 1997 – albeit it’s unlikely a gigantic prehistoric beast is running about down there.
At the time, some critics were quick to point out the seemingly ridiculous notions of life deep in the ocean in Alten’s novels, with Alten saying one LA Times writer in particular ‘ripped it apart, everything from the name Meg to claiming that there were hydrothermal events at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.’
‘I didn’t know it was real, but I wrote it as it was, and then it turned out to be true. So I wrote that critic into the sequel novel [The Trench] and had him killed off – anyone that wrote a bad review of The Meg got killed in The Trench,’ he recalled.
That cheekily macabre approach to dealing with criticism has expanded over the years, with Alten’s followers, known as ‘Megheads,’ joining competitions to become characters in the novels, all in the hope of being devoured in a suitably gory fashion.
‘My loyal readers are wonderful. They support me in every endeavour, I love them’ Alten said.
Some, however, weren’t keen on the changes from page to screen.
‘A lot of them didn’t like the first movie because they went away from the book. You know where all the megalodons were, albino. They tried, but they couldn’t make it look real enough,’ Alten explained.
Alten himself though says he has ‘no complaints’ about the movie and its follow-up, with most of the story kept parallel to the books, and safe in the knowledge that the lead producer on the film Belle Avery is herself a Meghead.
‘So I know she’s gonna make the right decisions if she does make changes’ said Alten.
The sequel attempts to correct some of the shortcomings of the previous film, including a prologue that indicates who would win in a combat between the most legendary ancient monsters of land and sea: Megalodon vs. T. Rex.
Not that the T. Rex and Megs ever co-existed mind: ‘We took some liberties, just to show everyone who is tougher’, joked Alten.
‘Spielberg’s creature versus mine, and mine wins!’
With the new film now in theatres, Alten has had the opportunity to see his work embraced by even more audiences, and he is hard at work on both the seventh – and final – novel and the Meg Legacy collection, giving his devoted fans even more material and novellas to fill the gaps between events in the novels.
He thinks the timing seemed appropriate, and he’s pleased to see Meg connect with new and younger readers.
He said: ‘I just assumed that the reason that the books were so popular among teens is for the subject matter. But then, after I created the Adopt An Author nonprofit program for young adult readers, I met with some adopting author teachers and they said, “Steve, the subject matter is not just the reason your books are so popular – that has a lot to do with it. but it’s the way you write.
‘”You write very visually. and for reluctant readers and readers who have dyslexia, a visual writing style is much better for them.” And that’s why the books are so popular which made a lot of sense.’
Whatever the reason, even as Alten waves farewell, Megheads have plenty more franchise potential to look forward to.
Meg 2: The Trench is in cinemas now.
