Bob and Harvey Weinstein may have just made the biggest tactical error of all time: selling the North American theatrical distribution rights for Mandy Moore’s “survival adventure” 47 Meters Down from their Dimension Films to Entertainment Studios. Drop the mic. End of article.
America (may she red white and blue) loves them some shark films. This is a fact. We began the obsession with plausible, if a stretch, thanks Peter Bentley, Stephen Spielberg, and Jaws. Lately, we’re just flat out getting crazy: Sharknado, Megashark vs. Giant Octopus, Dinoshark, and Sharktopus. While the later two may not technically be shark movies as I’m not sure those creatures are technically sharks (I’m no paleontologist), you catch the proverbial drift. And folks, you might have noticed (as I’m sure you’ve been checking your phone every five minutes for alerts on ‘shark,’ ‘movie,’ and ‘when’ since Deep Blue Sea reared its ugly head), but it’s been a little while since we were given a serious shark movie.
Thus it comes as no surprise that on the heels of the Blake Lively biopic about life with Ryan Reynolds thriller The Shallows, we’re quickly getting another serious take on shark drama, this time brought to you by fellow skinny white girl, Mandy Moore.
Originally scheduled for a direct to on-demand and home video release on August 2, the film has been saved from the fate of Ascendant, and will debut where every shark movie belongs, on a screen the size of a tennis court when it opens wide in 2017.
Thematically similar movies often come in pairs, if not whole bunches. I’m not saying that someone is shopping a script around and that someone else (who probably turned said script down) just flat out ripped them off, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. Armageddon / Deep Impact. Dante’s Peak / Volcano. Wyatt Earp / Tombstone (apparently this happened a lot in the 90s). Trainwreck / Straight Outta Compton. And now The Shallows / 47 Meters Down.
Let’s recap: skinny white girl; ocean-based scenario; things go wrong; sharks; action; seagulls (likely); interloper death (almost certainly, sorry would-be heroes); and point made.
At least they swapped buoy / rocky outcropping for shark cage adrift on ocean floor. Let’s just hope that Mandy Moore and fellow stranded girl Claire Holt (playing Moore’s sister) are using rebreathers with radio frequency enabled, or this is going to be a whole lot of bubble blowing and not so much dialogue.
[Via Variety]
