The Meg director John Turteltaub has indicated he has no problems at all with his film being compared to Steven Spielberg’s classic Jaws, especially because he intentionally set out to pay homage to the 1975 blockbuster.
Many have spotted a few parallels in trailers for The Meg to the Oscar-winning film, the first in the shark-thriller genre, which went on to spawn a four-movie franchise and influence vintage flicks such as Orca and modern contemporaries like Deep Blue Sea, The Shallows and yes, Sharknado.
RELATED: How in the Hell Is The Meg Only Rated PG-13?
“I’ve been asked so many [questions about Jaws],” Turteltaub told Yahoo Entertainment. “This is like a dream come true. But nobody is asking me good questions about Jaws.”
“There are Jaws references in this movie,” he added, while refusing to point out which sequences in particular fans should look out for. “Some are more obvious than others, and some are very personal to me. Some I worried, ‘Am I going to get in trouble for this?’ You can’t do a shark movie without someone going, ‘It’s like Jaws.’”
Seeing as Spielberg didn’t have to deal with a 75-foot megalodon escaping a mysterious trench off China, The Meg is more than a Jaws remake, with scenes clearly showing Jason Statham’s Jonas Taylor already in need of a bigger boat to kill the prehistoric fish as it hunts human prey at the beach.
RELATED: How The Meg Sets Up a Super-Size Sequel
In theaters nationwide, director Jon Turteltaub’s The Meg stars Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Masi Oka, Cliff Curtis, Page Kennedy, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao and Rainn Wilson.