What do you do when you’re fighting a giant shark? Well, you call in all the muscle you can of course. Variety is reporting that the Jason Statham starring Meg 2: The Trench has just cast Chinese action star Wu Jing.

Wu is a martial artist who used his talents to make a name for himself in the film industry. He has starred in, written, and directed a number of Chinese movies and television shows. Currently, Wu is the all-time highest-grossing male actor in China. For example, his movie Wolf Warrior 2, which he starred in, written, and directed, Wu broke a number of records at the Chinese box office including the biggest single-day gross for a Chinese film. Additionally, Wu stared in the Chinese sci-fi film The Wandering Earth, which made over $690 million in the Chinese box office alone and was the third highest-grossing film worldwide in 2019. Wu made his American film debut in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. While his name may not be a big one to a vast majority of American audiences, his name being attached to Meg 2: The Trench is sure to get a lot of butts in seats when the film opens in China.

Meg 2: The Trench is the sequel to 2018’s The Meg, which saw Statham and a team of scientists fighting a Megalodon, aka a giant shark. While the plot of the sequel is currently being kept under wraps, one can only hope it means fighting an even bigger shark. Wu is of course joining Statham in the new film as well as the recently announced cast of Sienna Guillory, Skyler Samuels, Sergio Peris-Mencheta. Unfortunately, Variety is also reporting that Li Bingbing, another popular performer from China who starred in the first film, is not returning for the sequel.

Li Bingbing and Jason Statham in The Meg
Image via Warner Bros.

Related: 'The Meg 2' Begins Production in the UK With Ben Wheatley Directing

While the first film was directed by Jon Turteltaub, who previously directed such fan-favorite films as the National Treasure series and Cool Runnings, the directing chair for the sequel has been handed over to Ben Wheatley, who has previously directed films like Free Fire. Returning to pen the script are the first film’s writers Dean Georgaris, Erich Hoeber, and Jon Hoeber with characters created by Steve Alten, who wrote the novel that The Meg was based on.

Stay tuned for any further updates on this project.