Here’s the best news story of the week. New Line Cinema’s proposed giant shark movie Meg is dead. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of people.
Moviehole has a copy of the Steve Alten newsletter. Alten is the author of the book on which Meg was to be based, and he reveals that the thing is pretty much done for, at least at New Line. He blames, not the fact that it’s a really stupid idea for a movie that’s been done dozens of times before, but random internal politics over at New Line. Alten says, “The key execs at New Line always treated MEG like an unwanted stepchild, and now, with my option set to expire in October, the[y] decided NOT to proceed.”
Unfortunately that means the door is open for some other studio to swim in to the giant shark named after ‘Family Guy’s’ least popular character business. Whether anyone will bite is unknown, but Alten seems convinced that there’s a billion dollar franchise somewhere in his book. I think he’s wrong, but we’ll see.
