New THE MEG Photo Shows a Giant Shark Swim into a Buffet of People and Jason Statham isn't Afraid of Swimming with Sharks
A new photo has been released for Jason Staham's upcoming film The Meg, which is a thriller that centers around a massive shark known as the Megalodon. In the film, he plays a diver who is sent on a mission to rescue the crew of a deep-sea submersible after being attacked by a 75-foot-long shark. The photo above gives you a look at the shark as it swims into a buffet of people for it to eat.
In preparation for the Jon Turtletaub-directed film, Statham actually swam with real sharks, and if you know anything about Jason Statham, you know swimming with sharks wouldn't scare him in the slightest. While talking to EW he said:
"On the early stages of the prep, we took a trip to Fiji, and we went diving with some bull sharks. They hand-feed them and it’s a spectacular thing to see. These things are three meters in length, huge big things. There were 20 or 30 of these things, and they were hand-feeding [them] big tuna heads, and we got very, very close, and it was a spectacular moment. To swim in close proximity to a big, three-meter shark, is to be recommended to all and everyone."
When asked if he was scared, the actor said:
"You know, it’s funny, because you get anxiety when you’re on the boat. But once you get in the ocean, things take a very different turn. You get very relaxed, and when you’re in their environment, it’s quite a tranquil sort of thing, the anxiety goes away completely. It’s remarkable to experience. All of the fear — or the perceived fear — is done in your own head before you get down there with them. Once you’re swimming down there with all the other divers, it’s phenomenal. It’s one of the greatest experiences you could have, for me anyway. I’m a big SCUBA diver fanatic. Wherever I am in the world, if I get a chance to get in the ocean, I do."
Yep... Jason Statham finds that swimming with sharks is relaxing. And that, my friends, is why we love him! The movie is based on the book by Steve Alten and this is the description:
On a top-secret dive into the Pacific Ocean’s deepest canyon, Jonas Taylor found himself face-to-face with the largest and most ferocious predator in the history of the animal kingdom. The sole survivor of the mission, Taylor is haunted by what he’s sure he saw but still can’t prove exists – Carcharodon megalodon, the massive mother of the great white shark. The average prehistoric Meg weighs in at twenty tons and could tear apart a Tyrannosaurus rex in seconds.
Written off as a crackpot suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Taylor refuses to forget the depths that nearly cost him his life. With a Ph.D. in paleontology under his belt, Taylor spends years theorizing, lecturing, and writing about the possibility that Meg still feeds at the deepest levels of the sea. But it takes an old friend in need to get him to return to the water, and a hotshot female submarine pilot to dare him back into a high-tech miniature sub.
Diving deeper than he ever has before, Taylor will face terror like he’s never imagined, and what he finds could turn the tides bloody red until the end of time. MEG is about to surface. When she does, nothing and no one is going to be safe, and Jonas must face his greatest fear once again.
The Meg also stars Winston Chao, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Jessica McNamee, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Robert Taylor, Cliff Curtis, Shuya Sophia Cai, and Masi Oka.
The Meg hits theaters on August 10th.