Rainn Wilson Will Unleash a Giant Shark in MEG
After spending decades in development, a film adaptation of Steve Alten's bestselling book Meg will finally hit the big screen in a couple of years, and the former Dwight Schrute will be along for the ride. Deadline reports that Rainn Wilson has joined the cast, which includes Jason Statham and Fan Bingbing in lead roles. The movie is about a massive shark and the people who join forces to try to kill it. Here's the book's synopsis:
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 movie's setting has been moved to China in an attempt to reach a more global audience and allow for better co-financing and distribution overseas.
Wilson will play "Jack Morris, a tech billionaire who funds an underwater observation program that unwittingly unleashes the Carcharodon megalodon – a 70-foot, 40-ton prehistoric cousin of the great white." Sounds like a part he could play in his sleep, and hopefully he'll add a light touch to a project that could easily be taken far too seriously. National Treasure director Jon Turtletaub took over directing duties from Eli Roth, and Meg will hit theaters on March 2, 2018.