Summary
- Director Ben Wheatley's love for monster movies, particularly Jaws, heavily influences his approach to Meg 2: The Trench.
- Wheatley draws inspiration from various monster movies, including Jason and the Argonauts, Shin Godzilla, and the current Godzilla movies.
- The Meg franchise incorporates elements from Jaws and other monster movies, while still maintaining its own unique identity and taking the suspense and action to the next level.
Meg 2: The Trench director Ben Wheatley explains how his love of Jaws and other monster movies influences his approach to the action-packed sequel. While The Meg franchise is based on the Steve Alten novels, the movies take great inspiration from Jaws. The Steven Spielberg classic put the shark movie genre on the map, with countless blockbusters following in its footsteps.
In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant about Meg 2: The Trench, Wheatley discussed his love of monster movies. He revealed that he watches Jaws every year, and shared how it influenced his approach to The Meg 2: The Trench. However, Wheatley also named other monster movies that inspired him and explained why the human elements speak to him as well. Check out Wheatley's full quote below:
Ben Wheatley: A lifetime of watching monster movies. It comes from, I think, being a kid and watching [Ray] Harryhausen's stuff; watching Jason and the Argonauts and Sinbad and all those movies. I remember watching Jaws as a kid on TV, and that blowing my mind.
In fact, I've probably watched Jaws every year since and always see new things in it. It's not just the greatest shark film of all time, but one the greatest films of all time. So, I take a lot of influence from that. And then I really love the kind of 70s Godzilla stuff, then Shin Godzilla, and the current influence of legendary Godzilla movies. It's all that stuff.
But then also, on the human side, it's kind of like Thing From Another World, or those '40s science-based adventures with lots of characters trying to solve stuff, and that that all feeds in. And Them!, the giant ant movie. It's a lot.
How Jaws Inspiration Serves Meg 2: The Trench
Wheatley's love for monster movies was clear in the trailer for Meg 2: The Trench, with homages to countless classics, including Jaws, throughout different scenes. Perhaps most intriguing is that his passion goes beyond the monster element and is tied to the humanity and science layers as well. The first Meg movie delved into the science of the megalodons, and it seems Meg 2: The Trench will follow this as well.
Jaws has influenced a generation of filmmakers and an entire subgenre of monster movies. Sharks have become the scariest hunters in the ocean, and The Meg movies take it to the next level with prehistoric sharks that amp up the fear even further. With Wheatley being such a big fan of Jaws, he can incorporate elements of what makes the movie so great without allowing it to overtake what makes The Meg franchise its own.
Meg 2: The Trench is able to build off the strong foundation of the first movie by bringing back characters that the audience already connected with. However, it takes the suspense and action to the next level with the new monsters that make it, so the heroes are never safe. By taking influence from great movies like Jaws, Godzilla, and Thing From Another World, Wheatley is able to tap into what makes this genre so captivating while still finding something new for audiences to experience in Meg 2: The Trench.
