Claire is...: shark

Showing posts with label shark. Show all posts

Sunday, 21 October 2018

FILM 1852: THE MEG

TRIVIA: In real life, Jason Statham is an expert swimmer. In the 1990 Commonwealth Games, he represented England in diving. Footage of him competing can be found online. Most of the shots of him in the water are real. A stunt double was used for more hazardous shots.

In the book, the megalodons are pure white, almost luminescent, from living in an environment with virtually no light. This coloring proved too difficult to render in CGI while still looking realistic, so the megalodons were colored like great white sharks.

Eli Roth was attached as director before being replaced by Jon Turteltaub. Roth left due to creative differences with the studio, namely that he wanted the film to maintain both its R-rating and a $150 million budget. It was also rumored that Roth, on top of writing and directing, also wanted to play the lead role of Jonas, but the studio believed he did not have the star power.

The film is based on the book "MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror," the first book that author Steve Alten ever published.

The Meg (2018) was filmed in New Zealand.

The name of the boat at the end of the film is "Charlotte." This is also the name of the ship that the character Benjamin Franklin Gates searches for in National Treasure (2004), which was also directed by Jon Turteltaub.

Featured on Episode #196 on the podcast "How Did This Get Made?".

Thursday, 9 August 2018

FILM 1812: DEEP BLUE SEA

TRIVIA: The license plate pulled from the shark's teeth is the same one found in the tiger shark in Jaws (1975).

For one scene, Thomas Jane had to swim alongside a real live shark. He was only allowed to shoot this once he had completed all his other scenes.

The orange colored mini-sub visible in the wet-entry area was the same mini-sub seen in the end of Sphere (1998), also starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Preacher's description of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (Tom Scoggins: "I spent four years at CalTech, and that's the best physics explanation I've ever heard.") is adapted from a quote by Einstein himself: "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."

Samuel L. Jackson was initially offered the role played by LL Cool J. Jackson's management didn't like the idea of him playing a chef so director Renny Harlin created the role of Russell Franklin for him, Jackson stated about Harlin casting him as Franklin "He said, 'Now you're going to be the richest man in the world, and you're going to have the greatest scene in the movie, and it's going to be a shock to everyone!" Jackson recalled. "He sent it back, [and the part] was Russell Franklin, and I was like 'Yeah, this was great.' I've done a lot of different things in movies, or had a lot of things happen to me in the movies, but nothing like what happens to me in this one."

DIRECTOR CAMEO: Renny Harlin: as one of the workers of Aquatica that are heading home for the weekend on the supply boat.

Sunday, 9 October 2016

FILM 1576: THE SHALLOWS

TRIVIA: The movie was shot in part off the Gold Coast of Australia. Other filming commenced in a giant swimming pool.

Jaume Collet-Serra teamed up with the art department for the design of the shark, "I came to the conclusion that the shark had to be female", says the director, "Females are slightly bigger and have great scars from mating, visually they're scarier as they are more protective."

The screenplay for this film was featured in the 2014 Blacklist, a list of the "most liked" unmade scripts of the year.

Nancy's nickname for the seagull is Steven Seagull, which is, of course, a pun on actor Steven Seagal.

For the seagull character of Steven Seagull, the usage of both cgi and using a puppet was considered based on the belief that it would be inordinately hard to train such a bird to act, this "horrified" both producer's Matti Leshem and Lynn Harris who wanted to use an actual seagull while scouting for location in Australia, Blake Lively was able to feed a group of seagulls at which point it was realized that using such a bird would be possible.