How much does horror maestro Eli Roth love sharks? Next month he'll be hosting Discovery Channel's mega-popular Shark Week, including a nightly talk show to talk about the killer fish even more. But he's also taking that love to a new level by entering talks to direct Warner Bros.' long-developing shark thriller, Meg.
In the works for two decades (and derailed by Deep Blue Sea of all things), Meg is based on the 1997 Steve Alten novel about man's encounter with a gigantic, prehistoric shark known as the Carcharodon megalodon, or "Meg" for short. In the books, the 60-foot Meg is terrorizing California but in an effort to lure in Chinese investors, Warner Bros. has switched the central location to China. Yep, that's how things work nowadays.
Warner Bros. is feeling confident due to Universal's record-breaking success with Jurassic World, and they assume audiences will flock similarly to another prehistoric tentpole. The most recent script was written by Dean Georgias, and presumably it's still being used. The big draw here is Roth, though, who has jumped back into the horror game with gusto after taking a bit of a breather. Not only does he have The Green Inferno coming up, but at Sundance he debuted the Keanu Reeves-starring thriller, Knock Knock. [Variety]
