Theatrical Release Of ‘The Meg’ Is Apparently Not What Jason Statham Signed Up For
Jon Turtletaub’s new giant shark thriller The Meg is set for its theatrical release tomorrow. Its star, Jason Statham, however, appears to be somewhat nonplussed by the final product. The Warner Bros. movie was rated PG-13 by the MPAA and can thus appeal to a wider audience than just adults.
Jason Statham is saying the movie he signed up for had a lot more blood and violence in the original script. For his preferences, Statham is saying he would have kept the gore.
In an interview with Collider the 51-year-old actor spoke candidly about his disagreements with changes in The Meg, from the film’s original script until it finally reached the big screen.
“I’m just saying it was radically different. I guess in some ways your imagination and your own perception of what it’s going to be is its worst enemy…
“It’s full of humor. It’s a little bit more directed to a different taste of what my own is in terms of I like more gory adult stuff. I’m a lot older but I can’t speak for what this film could possibly speak to a younger audience.
“I might have made a film that not many people wanted to see. I’m not a filmmaker…”
Ahead of its premiere, The Meg currently holds a critical score of 50 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating a split, with some critics enjoying the “popcorn movie” nature of The Meg and others lambasting it for being what many perceived as mediocre.
Jason Statham got his start in movies appearing in the Guy Ritchie movies Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch. Statham, however, broke through to major notoriety in the 2002 action movie The Transporter.
Jason Statham went on to star in the Crank, The Expendables, and the Fast and Furious movies, which have brought in an estimated $1.5 billion in movie ticket sales.
The Meg is a horror/science-fiction film that follows in the tradition of killer shark movies like Jaws. The film’s title is a reference to a giant shark known as the “megalodon,” an extinct species that died out more than 2.6 million years ago, according to scientists.
Megalodon fossil records indicate that the giant shark could have been up to 60 feet in length.
Although there have been cryptozoological Bigfoot-like claims of people who say they have spotted real, live megalodons during present times, such claims have been proven to be either hoaxes or cases of mistaken identity, where the person was actually seeing a whale.
