Fans who have been waiting years to see a film adaptation of Steve Alten’s giant shark tome, MEG, will be happy to learn that the film is steadily moving forward, and today we got the exciting news that the film has cast its lead actor!
A-lister Jason Statham has signed onto the production, Variety reports. Our best educated guess is that he will be playing Jonas, the protagonist of the story, who works to stop the giant Megalodon shark, long-thought to be extinct, after it rises from the Mariana Trench and wreaks havoc on the Asian coastline. However, the outlet did not offer any specifics as to which character he would be playing.
Things might have seemed a little dicey for MEG earlier this year when previously announced director Eli Roth bowed out of helming the big budget shark thriller. But Roth was replaced by director Jon Turteltaub, who has officially signed on to the project. Turteltaub is best known for directing the National Treasure films, and he seems a likely choice to bring MEG to the big screen.
Last year, Steve Alten and Viper Press released a revised and expanded version of MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror, which included some scenes that were rewritten by Alten from the original story. This anniversary edition also saw the first time that the MEG: Origins e-book was available in print. A source close to the production tells us that the script for the film will feature some of these revised scenes, as well as plot points from Origins. Stay tuned for more on this as it is announced.
