‘The Meg 2’ In Very Early Stages: U.S.-China Entertainment Summit

This afternoon at the U.S.-China Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles at the Skirball Center, The Meg executive producer Catherine Xujun Ying acknowledged that that a sequel to summer’s shark movie is in the works.

“That is definitely the plan,” said Ying when asked by Variety’s Patrick Frater about building out the franchise during a panel for film and the future plans of The Meg 2 , “It’s still in the very early stages, but we’re working on it. We’re trying to keep it secret at this time.” Ying is the VP of CMC and CEO of Gravity Pictures who was involved heavily in financing The Meg which was distributed by Warner Bros. in U.S./Canada and a majority of overseas territories.

The Meg producer Belle Avery also is looking forward to sequels: She bought the rights to Steve Alten’s books. At this point in time, there are discussions in place to create Meg theme park rides over in the PROC.

From what Deadline knows, The Meg 2 hasn’t set any screenwriters yet, the project isn’t officially greenlit by Warner Bros, and for the studio to move forward with a part 2 it certainly has to out-wow the first installment. Having Gravity on board certainly makes The Meg 2 more of a reality. The panel discussed how going into production, the whole notion of a U.S.-China co-production was daunting as the failures were against them (not naming pics like The Great Wall and Warcraft). Coming away from The Meg, the consensus felt like this type of feat could certainly happen again.

At the top of the panel, it was mentioned that to date The Meg is the most successful U.S.-Chinese co-production ever at $527.8M WW beating the previous Sino-co-production champ, Kung Fu Panda 3 at $521.1M WW.

Also on today’s Meg panel was director Jon Turtletaub, Jiang Wei; CEO, Legendary East, and General Manager, Wanda Media; Ben Erwei Ji, Managing Director, Reach Glory Entertainment; and Chantal Nong, Vice President, DC-Based Film Production, Warner Bros. The panel discussed how going into production, the whole notion of a U.S.-China co-production was daunting as the failures were against them (not naming pics like The Great Wall and Warcraft). Coming away from The Meg, the consensus felt like this type of feat could certainly happen again.