Sharks seem to be all the rage these days for location-based horror, with films like the Blake Lively thriller “The Shallows” and campy Jason Statham effort “The Meg” swimming up and trying to nibble on interested parties. Don’t forget 2017’s out-of-nowhere, low-budget success “47 Meters Down,” a film once destined for a straight-to-video fate that was picked up last-minute by Entertainment Studios and dropped right in the middle of the summer season. That might be a sign of total failure, but the film was a relative hit, making $61.7 million on a $5.3 million budget. Talk about a reclamation project.
Though, it doesn’t take a box office expert to know what happens when an inexpensive original horror film makes bank: it gets a more expensive sequel!
READ MORE: ’47 Meters Down’ Is Dumber Than A Bucket of Chum [Review]
“47 Meters Down: Uncaged” promises less caginess than the first, and slightly more open spaces. The film will find four unsuspecting divers battling it out with a scary species of shark in an old cave system that doubles as an abandoned city, which is far, far more adventurous than the first film’s tight confines of a shark cage (hence…’Uncaged’). If the standard for this series holds, there will be more than meets the shark’s eye with the plot, so buckle in for that.
John Corbett, Nia Long, Corrine Foxx (daughter of Jamie Foxx), Sophie Nelisse, Sistine Stallone (daughter of Sylvester Stallone), Brianne Tju and more will hop in to dangerous waters for this scary shark flick, which looks like it’s going to live up to its promise of terrorizing swimmers in dimly-lit underground interiors. The first film’s director, Johannes Roberts, will return at the helm. He had “The Strangers: Prey at Night” to his name in 2018 and just recently booked the James Wan-produced “Resident Evil” reboot. Roberts might be a name to watch in the years ahead among genre filmmakers.
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There’s no way to tell if this film will capture lightning in a bottle with audiences as the first film did, but the visibility of the franchise alone should at least allow it to find its own little niche audience once more as it preps for its June 28 release. We’ll see if this new sharkfest sinks or swims.