Let’s be clear—Melissa McCarthy dominated Spy, but her co-star Jason Statham threatened to steal a scene or two as a CIA agent who was more “bit of rough” than debonair 007 stand-in. As Rick Ford, Statham bungled every attempt at acquitting himself well in the role of secret agent—that is, whenever he wasn’t trying to regale anyone within earshot with his incredible stories of impossible (for everyone but him) missions. Among other things, Ford claimed to have ingested 179 different types of poison simultaneously, which was how he learned he was immune to all of them. Statham’s next potential role will place him in equally far-fetched circumstances, as the actor is in talks to appear in the mega-shark movie, Meg.
You might recall that Eli Roth was circling the project, which can best be described as “Jaws goes prehistoric on everyone’s asses,” as recently as last June. But once (and possibly future) National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub will helm the adaptation of Steve Alten’s novel, Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, which told the story of two men hunting a Megalodon, the modern shark’s much bigger (and toothier) ancestor. Statham is in talks to play one of these hunters, who will almost certainly need a bigger boat at some point because just look at this thing. It could eat a couple of Jaws and still want to snack on Statham and one of those fast cars he’s taken to driving. But given the prehistoric apex predator’s nickname in the movie, it’s entirely possible that this will turn out to be an updated Free Willy.