“Orange Is the New Black” actress Ruby Rose is in negotiations to join Jason Statham in the Warner Bros. shark epic “Meg.”
“National Treasure” helmer Jon Turteltaub will direct the film, which also stars Chinese actress Fan Bingbing (“X-Men: Days of Future Past”).
The movie will be co-financed by Flagship Entertainment, Gravity Pictures — a division of China Media Capital — and Warner Bros. Gravity Pictures will distribute the film in China, while Warner Bros. handles the pic throughout the rest of the world.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Belle Avery, and Colin Wilson are producing. Executive producers are Wei Wayne Jiang, Barrie M. Osborne, Randy Greenberg, and Gerald R. Molen. The film is dated for March 2, 2018.
The story is based on Steve Alten’s 1997 novel “Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror.” The title is derived from the ancient Megalodon species that has survived while being trapped in the Mariana Trench due to a barrier of cold water.
“Meg” is centered on an international underwater observation program, led by Chinese scientists, that comes under attack by an unknown danger. With its deep-sea submersible disabled and trapped at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, they need rescue. Statham will portray a former naval captain and expert deep-sea diver who’s recruited for a likely suicide mission — even though he faced the predator years before and was forced to abort his mission and abandon half his crew.
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Rose will play an engineering genius and a member of the marine research team.
She can be seen next in “xXx: Return of Xander Cage,” “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter,” and “John Wick 2,” all of which are bowing in the next year. Rose is repped by WME, manager Carol Bodie, and attorney Howard Fishman
