The Insane History of Hollywood’s Quest to Bring THE MEG to the Screen

This weekend we will see the release of The Meg starring Jason Statham. The film is directed by Jon Turteltaub from a screenplay written by Dean Georgaris along with Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber. It’s based on the New York Times best-selling book by Steve Alten.

The film is poised to be a massive hit but the history behind the movie is anything other than an easy backstroke through the big blue. Yes, the history behind the making of the film based on Alten’s hit book is the stuff nightmares are made of. Sure it’s not as scary as a thousand ton shark coming up at your legs from the deep depths of hell, but it’d still make for a harrowing summer blockbuster itself.

So buckle in as we take you through Hollywood’s decades-long struggle to finally bring Jason Statham punching sharks in the face to the big screen this summer.

Let’s start at the very beginning. In the summer of 1995, author Steve Alten read about the Mariana Trench and thought, “What if a shark lived down there?” Alten figured that this simple premise would make for a killer summer popcorn flick (think Jaws for a new generation) and set right to work putting the saga down on paper.

At the time when Alten starting writing, he was working a day job at a meat company at the time and would stay up until 3 a.m. writing his book. Then, fittingly, in 1996, on a Friday the 13th, he was fired from his meat-packing job. But four days later, his book was optioned by Disney and sparked a bidding war between major publishers.

Alten signed with Bantam/Doubleday in a two-book deal worth $2.1 million. The novel then sold foreign rights for more than $1.3 million. Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror was then first published in 1997. As mentioned above, Disney snatched up the rights to Alten’s book before it was even published and set to work attempting to adapt the novel to the big screen.

It didn’t go well.

They stuck wings on the shark,” Alten said. “I’m not kidding! They wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say. My role has got to be to keep the science and not the ridiculousness for Hollywood’s sake. One screenwriter had the shark growling.”

Alten hating the ludicrous scripts didn’t matter much in the long run. In 1998, Warner Bros. announced Deep Blue Sea, a rival shark flick (which turned out to be utterly classic and badass) and Disney backed down, deciding to put The Meg in turnaround. That same year, Alten’s sequel to Meg, the novel The Trench was released and became a bestseller.

After several years, Alten regained the rights to his book and wrote his own adaptation. That script eventually ended up in the hands of none other than Guillermo del Toro who took it to veteran Hollywood producers Lawrence Gordon (Die Hard) and Lloyd Levin (Boogie Nights), whom he had worked with on Hellboy. The producers approached Speed and Twister director Jan De Bont, whom they worked with on Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life to helm their new take on the now classic novel.

Jan De Bont

From the beginning, I loved the project,” De Bont said. “It’s like an adventure. It stimulates your imagination.”

In August 2004, New Line expressed interest in making this new version of The Meg, but didn’t care for Alten’s adaptation of his own book and instead hired the screenwriter behind Armageddon, Shane Salerno. And on April 10, 2005, Variety reported New Line picked up Meg with Gordon and Levin producing along with Del Toro (who eventually left the film) and De Bont. The film was given a summer 2006 release date and a budget of $75 million.

In September, Salerno turned in his first draft, which reaffirmed how excited New Line execs were. They even said, “We feel that with the changes discussed… we will be working with a potential classic here.”

De Bont then began to hire top Hollywood craftsmen including visual effects supervisor John Nelson (Gladiator), production designer Bill Sandell (The Perfect Storm) and line producer Colin Wilson (War of the Worlds). He also produced storyboards, animatics and built a 5-foot clay-and-fiberglass scale model of a megalodon to show the studio at his next presentation. When he finished that presentation, evidently New Line literally applauded him.

Producer Ken Atchity

He invested a substantial amount of money in artwork and mock-ups of how the shark would look like,” recalled producer Kenneth Atchity. “He was convinced they were going to do it. They kept saying they were, but we never really got a clear sign from [New Line co-Chairmen] Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne.”

Then, in November 2005, the estimated budget on Salerno’s first draft soared to $157 million and New Line immediately ordered the budget be chopped down to $125 million. De Bont cut more than 200 visual effects shots, saving $18.9 million, and figured he could also skip filming on the open ocean in favor of the huge water tank James Cameron used for Titanic. But New Line then demanded more cuts.

De Bont said the studio told him, “If you bring it down to around $100 million, then [we] will make the movie.”

And on June 6, 2007, after New Line’s string of box office failures producer Kenneth Atchity sent out an e-mail to The Meg team: “While NL holds rights to ‘Meg’ until 10/30/07, we have not found a way to go on with the movie after all chiefly because physical production does not believe that the budget will hold to $100m…

New Line CEO Robert Shaye

New Line cited a number of factors went into its decision to cancel The Meg, but really it all came down to the simple fact the risks ultimately outweighed the benefits.

The script needed a lot of work,” a New Line spokeswoman said. “It was very expensive, and we did not choose the director or producers, who were already attached.”

It was a completely blown opportunity,” De Bont said. “It is such a fantastic subject matter.”

Things were quiet for years until in June of 2015 Jurassic World hit it huge at the box office and Warner Bros. (who produced the rival Deep Blue Sea mentioned above) scored the rights and a new script by Dean Georgaris (The Manchurian Candidate, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life) was written up. Belle Avery and Colin Wilson signed on to produce.

Eli Roth then stepped up to the plate to deliver us a new version and dove into his research head-first, including a gig hosting Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, where he literally swam with the sharks.

Eli Roth

While discussing The Green Inferno with Collider, Roth addressed The Meg saying, “We just turned in the script to the studio and I’m designing the artwork now. I’m doing some character and creature designs. It’s so much fun.

He continued: “The thing is with Meg, the size of the creature, it sort of becomes impractical to do it practically, but I’ve seen how they’ve done the whale in In the Heart of the Sea. They showed me footage and they’re like, ‘Before you judge CG, take a look at this,’ and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ The whale in In the Heart of the Sea looks so good. I was like, ‘All right, we’re good.’ I wouldn’t do the movie unless I believed the technology was there to do it and the great thing is with Warner Bros and the team that we’re doing [it] with, we’re gonna have the resources to do it right.”

Roth then told Flickering Myth in February, “When I met with the studio I basically said, ‘You know Pac-Man eating dots? Well, the shark is Pac-Man and the dots are people’. That’s the movie I’m making. Give me five surfers to go in one bite. There’s no fighting, there’s no trashing – it just swallows and keeps moving. You’re a dot in a Pac-Man maze. They loved it. It’s going to be scary and it’s going to be exciting.”

Roth Hosting Shark Week

He continued: “I think one of the reasons it took 20 years was that they never figured out how to get the story right. Because no one knew how to do the effects to make them convincing. And now we’re in a place where you can really do a hybrid of practical and digital [effects]. You have to make it look organic, otherwise, the movie won’t work. I’m really, really excited about it.”

All of that seemed all well and good. But then on March 3rd, 2016 Roth quietly exited the film. Nerdist reported this was due to “Warner Bros. looking to cut the budget of the film and rewrite the script to reflect those changes.”

And then on the same day back in March of 2016, the studio announced that director Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) had signed up to be Roth’s replacement. And the next month star Jason Statham signed on. The rest, as they say, is history.

***

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sordid history behind The Meg. What did you think of this article? Make sure to hit us up and let us know what you think in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram!

The Meg is produced by di Bonaventura Pictures, Apelles Entertainment, Maeday Productions, Inc., and Flagship Entertainment, in association with Beijing Digital Impression (BDI) Film. The screenplay is written by Dean Georgaris along with Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, based on the New York Times best-selling book by Steve Alten.

In addition to Jason Statham and Li Bingbing, the cast includes Winston Chao, Masi Oka, New Zealander Cliff Curtis, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Jessica McNamee, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Robert Taylor, and Sophia Shuya Cai.

The film is now playing in theaters nationwide!

Synopsis:

The story involves a deep-sea submersible attacked by a massive creature, previously thought to be extinct. The vessel lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest trench in the Pacific with its crew trapped inside.

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