The Meg | Chomp On This: The Making of The Meg | Warner Bros. Entertainment

So we're gonna be fine. I don't know if every director's this way, but for me, I just want to read a script that I haven't read before. I certainly had never been sent a big monster movie. Certainly not a big giant shark movie. And it was new for me, and I thought, okay, this is a challenge. This is gonna be hard, so let's do it. Big is fun. Being under the ocean is fun. Watching somebody else be scared is fun. Going deep, deep under the sea in submarines and stuff like that. But you know what's really fun? Watching Jason Statham. Hell yeah! We really wanted Jason for this movie because he had never done a movie like this. We thought it was an opportunity both to show him in a different light and also give us the opportunity of using his talent in a different way than had been used before. He's not a fighter in this movie. It's not about that. We wanted a man who's gone through real trauma and there's nothing better than a tough guy who's gone through trauma. Because to see him impacted by it means it really has a weight. And what does this character have to overcome as a result of that? Hey, brother, we're good to go. System go for descent. This is where he is an adventure hero, not an action hero in a sense. And that is a different quality. If you start sending people back down there, come save your asses. Because in case what happened down there wasn't clear to you, And versus Meg is in a fight. Slaughter. There's nothing false about Jason Statham. He is an honest, genuine guy who speaks the truth, has a great sense of humor, doesn't fake his physical appearance, doesn't fake the stunts, doesn't fake the fighting. All that stuff, it's all legit. A lot of the stuff we do with Jason, we know his physicality and kind of know what he likes and what he doesn't like. So a lot of the things that he was doing, he was physically holding on himself. So if anything happens or he doesn't like it anymore, Instead of him relying on someone else to push a button to stop something, he can basically release or let go of it. Or we would put different apparatus into the rig so he could actually release himself from it. This tracker rifle only has a 100-foot range. Get really close before you shoot. The Meg tagging sequence was done out in the Hauraki Gulf and then also in the tank. We constructed a rig off the side of one of the boats that basically dragged him through the water and it was controllable enough that we could have a crane and camera team on there to film him. And then we also did it in the tank behind me on winches where he was pulled under the water at different speeds with different camera positions. So yeah it was an exciting sequence and also did a I rigged with him where he was kicking the shark in the head, and we had him on a ratchet that was pulling him up out of the water. I'm not sure. Is it harder making a movie in the middle of the ocean than on a set, where if it rains it doesn't matter, if there's noise it doesn't matter, it's always a nice temperature, everyone's happy, it's not going to suddenly get windy? Yeah. Easier. Better? No. Much better to be out in the middle of the ocean. When you come out on a boat and you're going to do a sequence, you have to really pare down the crew to the bare essentials because there are limitations on how many people this boat can carry. I think we're down to about 85 people. You're very much subject to wet weather, both the normal rain or not rain, sunny or not sunny, as well as wind and sea conditions. So it's a challenge to find that window of time when you can actually come out on the water and capture a great sequence. If you take your boat out to where you want to shoot, boats go like this when they're standing still. They don't just sit there still. Oh, you put two anchors. Ah, give me 45 minutes. We'll get those anchors out there. I'm sorry, what? 45 minutes to put the anchors out? Uh-huh. But you know, once we get them out there, we can't move the boat. Yeah, but the sun's going to be over there later. All that stuff is coming into play. I don't want to ruin the magic, but no, you have this gigantic lake you build so you can be on water without having to spend two hours to get there and being able to control it a little bit and take care of people and keep people safe. So we've shot on the water a number of different times in Meg, and it is exhausting. Acting is kind of hard. You've got to be concentrated, working all day, remembering your lines, really listening, relating, bringing yourself, making sure you haven't forgotten anything. When you're trying to do that in the water while doing this all day, it's pretty grueling. So that was a new skill set, water acting. They all love that. They get to go swimming. They got paid to go swimming every day. Before I haven't got this movie, I didn't know how to swim. So when I got here, I know how to swim now. I'm from Detroit. We don't have pools around. So, you know, swimming was not something that I did a lot as a kid or as an adult. And so it didn't come naturally to me, but coming here and these guys, the stunt guys, they were fantastic in getting me prepared and ready and comfortable in the water since we had to spend so much time in it. So that worked, right? That looked great. All right. Good luck. When the actors showed up on set, they had a one-week water safety course where the stunt team took them through swimming lessons and survival lessons and all this stuff. You work with a child actor, especially someone like Sofia, and she is so ready. She's just rehearsed and knows what she wants to do and has practiced her stuff and wants to please. And then you come to the set and the director, as he's talking to her about what's gonna happen, heaves her in the water. She was so mad at me. But she got in. She loved it. She couldn't get into that water fast enough. Yeah, I just loved it and I was so excited and Paige threw me into the ocean and then I was like... That was so fun. Before I met her, I was like, OK, this is going to be my little pal here. And so from the very first day I met her, we gravitated to each other. You know, we danced together, we rapped together. We have a good time like we're friends. And this has been for the entirety of the project. Three months later, we're finally doing this scene. I want to make sure we had that rapport beforehand so that she trusts me and so that she know that she was safe. And I think she did. Paige says that he is saving me like a joke. And then I said, I'm saving you. Actually, we're both kind of saving each other. I think she felt safe with me. And that platform was very small. But it also made the adrenaline kind of go, because you want to get it right, and which helps in the situation that we're going through as actors. Teamwork. I'm exhausted. I didn't think that I needed to do too much training in swimming, I was wrong. There was one day, it was like two days ago, where Cliff was just hanging out and he's talking to me and we're treading water and I could not have a conversation, I could not keep up his conversation. He's talking to me like we are now. And I realized that he had a floating device underneath him and I didn't. And so I was starting to like, get a bit faint. And I was like, I can't, I'm feeling a bit, you know, a bit unfit here. And he's like, oh, you don't have one of these? I was like, no, I do not have one of those. He will give me that. I thought he was the most fit man on the planet. None of this was part of the job description. None of this was part of the job description. They failed to mention that part. One day I spent, I remember at the end of the day, I just, I couldn't move when I was done. I've never been so tired after a day of acting before. I'm really glad you're capturing this. I think one of the days was almost eight hours in the water, solidly, and between treading and sprinting for my life. For that entire time, I got to the very end and I just, my body couldn't do it anymore and I had to be like lifted out of the water by Jason and Rain for one of the scenes. And they were like, oh, that's your last take. You didn't even make it to the boat. They were like, we had, I was like, I don't remember the last four seconds of what just happened. So you must be right. Just a lot of new challenges, but it's been a really cool adventure too. I'm not really a good swimmer and a diver. And I had never seen a shark cage until I did this movie. In a shark cage, by yourself, and they close all of the door. It seems like claustrophobic, but our crew is so professional. They're going to make me very safe. And I have to wear a lot of weights to help me keep down there. And those things are all making me feel exhausted, a little bit terrifying, and very excited. My adrenaline just come up. Fighting with the sea, and it's so exciting. You're tired already? Yeah, oh my God, I'm scared. Because you're nervous. I'm not scared of the water, I'm scared. Why do I feel tired? Because you don't breathe enough. Water's just a dangerous place. Every time you've ever seen a movie where someone's swimming, there is somebody in a wetsuit scuba diving beneath them. Every movie you have ever seen. And we are constantly editing around bubbles. It was just a blast. I didn't have to get in the actually cold water. Jason Statham did, though. Had a couple of stunts that he did himself, diving off the boat, being dragged behind the boat in all kinds of various ways. And I got to hand it to him. That's some tough stuff. And he just, no pun intended, he dove right in. I'm going to make this thing bleed. See, what you said before, you were right. It's not about the people you lose. It's about the people you save. Sign it off. Jonathan! Scary movies and scary things. It's so fun for a director. That's the challenge, right? It's a complete manipulation. We know it. That's why we go to horror films. But we also know we live in a world of big, flashy visual effects. Holy Moses, big movies. And you also have to deliver on the big. When you see the scale of this thing, you just can't believe it. You just can't believe that this thing lived and roamed the seas. We're just trying to have fun, let the audience get scared at times, laugh at times, cheer at times. Who knows what else is down at the bottom of the South China Seas. The notion of this mystery and prehistoric things still being alive and how we confront science with a lot of disbelief at first, and science has to convince us things are true. These are ideas that certainly play out in the movie a little bit, But really... The most important thing was, oh my god, a giant shark is going to eat people. That's one of the themes we really focused on.