Filmmaker Eli Roth took a bit of a break from directing after 2007’s Hostel: Part II, but he appears to be on a tear as of late. Fresh off the cannibal pic The Green Inferno and the Keanu Reeves-fronted home invasion thriller Knock Knock (both of which are expected to be released this year), Variety reports that Roth is stepping up to the blockbuster plate with the Warner Bros. thriller Meg. Roth is in talks to direct the tentpole, which is based on the Steve Allen novel of the same name and revolves around two men who band together to take out a giant, prehistoric shark that’s threatening the California coast. So Jaws, then.
The project has been in development for years, and was initially heating up in 1997 at Disney before the failure of Deep Blue Sea made the studio rethink its decision. This iteration has a screenplay written by Dean Georgaris (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life) and will be produced by Belle Avery and Colin Wilson.
The report makes a point to say that Warner Bros. has been high on Georgaris’ script for some time, but the studio was no doubt spurred by the insane success of Jurassic World to finally get their own prehistoric monster movie off the ground—the beast at the heart of Meg is a Megaladon, an extinct species of shark that lived during the Cenozoic Era (approximately 15.9 to 2.6 million years ago).
Meg is the first similar-in-topic movie to gain steam after Jurassic World's record-smashing opening weekend, but it certainly won’t be the last. Expect to see a lot of monster/dinosaur/prehistoric movies flood theaters in two years time.
