Sometimes, dreams do come true. After nearly twenty years, a sequel to one of the most belovedshark moviesever is finally happening. That’s right, folks.Deep Blue Sea 2is being filmed as we speak. According to Moviehole,Deep Blue Sea 2isn’t just happening, it is already being shot in Africa. That’s the good part. The possible bad part? It is being done as aSyFy original movie. Here’s what Moviehole had to say about it.
“Darin Scott (‘House Party: Tonight’s the Night’) has been shooting the film in Cape Town, with newly announced ‘Aquaman’ co-star (and ‘Third Watch’ alum) Michael Beach among the cast. The film is being produced as a telefilm for the SyFy channel, so don’t expect cameos from any of the original ‘Deep Blue Sea” players (namelyThomas Jane)."
So not seeing Thomas Jane come back to kick some shark ass is kind of a bummer, but at leastDeep Blue Sea 2is happening in some way. This is actually not the first we’ve heard about aDeep Blue Seasequel. Earlier this year, director Jack Perez talked about the script he was commissioned to write forDeep Blue Sea 2, which would have been appropriately insane.
“What they were interested in was keeping the theme ofshark experimentation. The script is about this scientific research ship that is seized by Somali pirates, and a team of Navy SEALs have to go in and take them out. The whole ship is basically a gigantic floating laboratory, with a maze of tunnels that the sharks can travel through that open up into tanks. My thinking was that this was Sgt. Rock vs. sharks, so I developed this platoon kind of based on my favorite Sgt. Rock characters. To a certain degree, it was similar to what they did in Predator; there were definitely echoes of that sort of motley group…I honestly didn’t even think of Austin Powers when I came up with that. My whole intention was to play it as straight as possible, so that the kind of stuff that was used in Austin Powers as a gag, or later in things like Sharknado purely as camp, would be done pretty direct and dark. On paper, it seems absolutely comical, but my intention was to make these sharks Frankenstein-style mutations that were tragic and violent. With the exception of the quipping between the soldiers, it wasn’t going to be played for humor. It would have been tricky with the budget I had [under $5 million], but I figured I could keep the pace going and make it relentless, and that would have been the key to its success.”
The originalDeep Blue Seacame out in 1999 and has gone on to become a true cult classic. Though not as groundbreaking, it is arguably the second best shark movie ever made, next toJaws. The movie grossed $164 million worldwide, which isn’t bad. But the $60 million budget hampered that a bit.
The basic plot ofDeep Blue Sea 2will reportedly invoke bull sharks being experimented on who, spoiler alert, manage to get loose. No word yet on when SyFy is planning to release the movie, but with the success they’ve had with theSharknadofranchise, this oddly makes a lot of sense.
