Eli Roth Set To Direct Giant Shark Movie Meg

Horror filmmaker Eli Roth is close to signing on for what will surely be his biggest film to date, in every sense of the word.

Variety reports that the ‘Cabin Fever’ and ‘Hostel’ director is in talks with Warner Bros to direct ‘Meg,’ a big screen adaptation of the 1997 novel by Steve Alten about a giant prehistoric shark, the Megaladon.

Somehow having survived to present day, the novel sees the gargantuan 60-foot carnivore emerge to terrorize the California coast - although Variety tell us the movie will see the action moved to China, helping the production tap into that now-lucrative marketplace.

- Jurassic World smashes box office records
- Roth’s Green Inferno Finally Gets US Release
- Jackson Joins The Blob Remake

Alten’s novel became a New York Times bestseller, prompting a series of follow-up novels and putting the project into development as a movie almost immediately. However, ‘Meg’ stalled at its initial home at Disney when Warner Bros put their own shark movie ‘Deep Blue Sea’ into production.

In the eighteen years since, ‘Meg’ has struggled to get out of development hell, despite such big name directors as Jan DeBont and Guillermo del Toro being attached over the years.

It would seem the phenomenal opening weekend success of ‘Jurassic World’ has replenished Hollywood’s taste for all things giant, carnivorous and prehistoric - although we hope the craze for low budget shark movies like the infamous ‘Sharknado’ series doesn’t mean such material can no longer be treated seriously.

For Roth, this is sure to represent a significant step up as a director, as all his films to date - while notorious for their gruesome content - have been fairly small scale, low budget productions. However, the director has long spoken of wanting to make a bigger, more mainstream production; to this end, he was initially attached to direct upcoming Stephen King adaptation ‘Cell.’

‘Meg’ will also be Roth’s first time directing a script he didn’t write himself, Dean Georgaris having adapted Alten’s novel for the screen.

However, the filmmaker and sometime actor clearly has a passion for sharks, having hosted two shark-based TV shows for the Discovery Channel. On a sort-of related note, Roth also had a notable cameo in ‘Piranha 3D,’ which of course features considerably smaller fish, but similarly nasty results.

Producers on ‘Meg’ include Belle Avery, Colin Wilson, Gerald Molen, Randy Greenberg,  Andrew Fischel and Cate Adams.

While we wait to see if Eli Roth will ultimately sign on for ‘Meg,’ the director’s latest film, ‘Knock Knock’ with Keanu Reeves, opens in the UK on 26 June, whilst his long-delayed 2013 film ‘The Green Inferno’ is expected at some point later this year.

- Kong: Skull Island Set In 1970s?
- Hathaway Cast In Giant Monster Movie
- Directors Announced For New Japanese Godzilla

Picture Credit: Rebel Press, Apelles Publishing, WENN