Critics Aren't Holding Back On Meg 2
"Meg 2: The Trench" is finally swimming to theaters, but there is blood in the water. Critics are having a feeding frenzy with the movie, and their biting reviews might just sink the movie's box office potential.
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00:00 Meg 2 The Trench is finally swimming to theaters, but there is blood in the water.
00:07 Critics are having a feeding frenzy with the movie, and their biting reviews might just
00:11 sink the movie's box office potential.
00:13 One of the biggest, most unexpected hits of 2018 was The Meg.
00:18 Based on Steve Alten's book of the same name and starring Jason Statham, the movie earned
00:22 $530 million at the global box office, potentially birthing a new franchise for Warner Bros.
00:28 After all, Alten's series does include eight books to pull from.
00:32 While the pandemic got in the way, the sequel is finally upon us, in the form of Meg 2 The
00:36 Trench.
00:37 Unfortunately for moviegoers, and more importantly Warner Bros., its financial prospects are
00:42 looking particularly grim in light of the film's critical reception.
00:46 Reviewers are roundly displeased with director Ben Wheatley's take on the giant killer shark
00:49 genre.
00:50 As of this video, Meg 2 The Trench carries an abysmal 27% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes,
00:56 with 78 reviews counted.
00:58 More critics still have to weigh in, but that is a terrible start for a movie that had a
01:02 reportedly $185 million production budget.
01:06 Warner Bros. also didn't lift the review embargo until just before the first showings of the
01:10 movie were set to begin in the U.S.
01:12 This suggests that they knew critics weren't going to like what Wheatley cooked up.
01:16 The big question right now is whether or not general audiences align with critics on this
01:20 one.
01:21 As we've seen plenty of times in the past, critics and moviegoers can wildly disagree
01:25 on a film.
01:26 Let's look at another 2018 blockbuster, Venom, which was trashed by critics but widely embraced
01:31 by audiences on its way to an $856 million worldwide.
01:35 Having said that, this is a rough way for any blockbuster to begin its run.
01:40 In this case, the movie in question truly needed all the help it could get.
01:44 The big problem here is that Meg 2 was already skating uphill in terms of its prospects at
01:48 the box office.
01:50 The sequel was expected to make somewhere between $22 million and $27 million domestically
01:55 on its opening weekend, but that was before these reviews dropped.
01:59 Even at the top end, that amount is not exactly what a studio wants to see for a blockbuster
02:03 that cost this much to produce.
02:05 Granted, the first movie made the lion's share of its earnings, more than 72 percent
02:09 of its total haul, from international ticket sales, so it's not as though a small domestic
02:13 debut is a final nail in the coffin.
02:16 But if these reviews impact potential viewers who are already on the fence, things could
02:20 get ugly.
02:21 Part of the reason the movie will struggle on its opening weekend, even without the negative
02:24 reviews, is its heavy-hitting direct competition.
02:27 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' "Mutant Mayhem" just hit theaters and is earning rave reviews.
02:32 To make matters worse, "Barbie" continues to be an unexpectedly huge juggernaut and
02:37 very well could become the highest-grossing movie of 2023.
02:41 The Trench is competing not only with those movies, but Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer"
02:45 as well.
02:46 That's to say nothing of the surprise horror hit "Talk to Me" or Disney's "Haunted Mansion."
02:51 Given these obstacles, a wave of negative reviews heading into the opening weekend for
02:55 Meg 2 is the last thing this movie needed.
02:58 That being said, it's not as though the original movie was a critical darling.
03:01 "What happened last time?"
03:03 "You don't wanna know."
03:06 The Meg currently holds a 46 percent critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, to go
03:10 with a 43 percent audience rating.
03:13 So the negative reviews for the sequel might not sink the movie.
03:16 But if 2023 has taught us anything, it's that audiences are no longer just going to turn
03:21 up for a franchise movie based on their love of a franchise alone.
03:25 2018 was only five years ago, but in terms of the landscape of the theatrical side of
03:29 the movie business, those five years are an eternity.
03:33 That year we had five movies make at least $1 billion globally.
03:37 This year, it's probably only going to be two.
03:40 Beyond that, we've seen franchise movies such as Ant-Man and the Wasp's "Quantumania," Shazam!
03:44 Fury of the Gods, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Flash, and even Mission Impossible
03:49 Dead Reckoning Part I fall short of expectations.
03:53 It's not just enough to be connected to a franchise anymore, and that's certainly working
03:57 against Meg 2 here.
03:59 The other problem is that the original came out a half-decade ago.
04:03 Were it not for the pandemic, it would have been more beneficial to have the follow-up
04:06 hit theaters in 2020 or 2021.
04:09 Perhaps even more concerning is the fact that The Meg made a massive chunk of its money
04:13 in China — $153 million, to be exact.
04:17 But Hollywood movies are not performing particularly well across the Pacific anymore, with the
04:21 exception of Avatar The Way of Water.
04:24 Because of this, the odds of the sequel being bailed out by overseas audiences are even
04:28 more slim.
04:29 Put simply, there was blood in the water before, and the critical reaction just chummed it
04:34 up even more.
04:35 [music]