Meg 2: The Trench Rounds Out Its Cast With Plenty More Delicious Humans
The real world is a pretty dang scary place at the moment, enough so that a movie where the biggest thing its heroes need to worry about is a giant, prehistoric, human-munching shark sounds downright relaxing. Yes, "The Meg 2: The Trench" is now in production in the U.K., and I don't know about you, but I could do with another two hours of Jason "The Stath" Statham going toe-to-toe with a 75-foot-long megalodon shark from the depths of the ocean right about now.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sienna Guillory ("Resident Evil: Apocalypse," "Clifford the Big Red Dog"), Skyler Samuels ("Scream Queens," "The Gifted"), and Sergio Peris-Mencheta ("Resident Evil: Afterlife," "Snowfall") have all joined Statham in the "Meg 2" cast. Peris-Mencheta is playing one of the movie's human antagonists, who is described as "a hard-edged mercenary." As for Guillory, she's portraying "the head of an applied sciences division," with Samuels co-starring as "an adventure-loving member of Statham's submarine crew." Will one or more of them end up becoming a tasty snack for the Meg? I wouldn't bet against it!
Statham vs. meg vs. kronosaurus?
Cliff Curtis, Shuya Sophia Cai, and Page Kennedy are also set to reprise their respective roles from the first "Meg" movie for "The Trench." Curiously, though, there's no mention in this latest casting update about Li Bingbing returning as Suyin, the oceanographer and quasi-love interest for Statham's character, Jonas Taylor, from the original film. On the other hand, a previous report said that she was expected to return for the "Meg" sequel, and the fact that Cai — who plays Suyin's young daughter Meiying — is coming back suggests that Li will show up at some point. One just hopes she avoids booming a meal for the Meg when she does.
On the opposite side of the camera, Ben Wheatley ("High-Rise," "Free Fire") is directing "Meg 2" from a script by "The Meg" co-writers Jon and Erich Hoeber. Considering how much the first "Meg" movie deviated from Steve Alten's source novel, it stands to reason "The Trench" won't have a whole lot in common with Alten's 1999 sequel book of the same name. The latter had Jonas and his team coming face-to-face with another not-so-extinct creature in the form of a kronosaurus, so fingers crossed, "The Trench" will include at least that wild plot point.
Honestly, the best thing Wheatley could probably do is lean into the inherent pulpiness of the "Meg" franchise with this new film. While I enjoyed the first "Meg" movie, it definitely suffered from "Jurassic Park" envy, in that it wanted to be an exciting, big-budget monster film while also serving as a cautionary tale about humans meddling with nature to serve their own interests, at the cost of other people's lives and doing harm to nature itself. That's a tricky balancing act to pull off (as the many "Jurassic Park" sequels have shown), so "Meg 2: The Trench" might be better off fully embracing its silly B-movie side.