Sharksploitation is a personal favorite corner of the horror genre for me. Whether it’s classics like Jaws and Jaws 2, European efforts like Tintorera and The Last Shark, or more recent outings like Deep Blue Sea and The Shallows, it always has my attention. At least as long as it maintains its head about Syfy level. This year gave us another solid outing in the form of 47 Meters Down (aka In the Deep).The $5 million-budget filmed managed to gross over ten times that worldwide. Are you thinking sequel? Well, so is The Fyzz Facility.
The production outfit has that 48 Meters Down is on the way. That’s right, an extra meter of shark-infested terror is coming for your viewing pleasure! While it’s unlikely that performers Mandy Moore or Matthew Modine will be back, the sequel is thankfully retaining writer/director Johannes Roberts (The Other Side of the Door) and his frequent co-writer, Ernest Riera.
[The] project [will] move the deadly shark action from Mexico to Brazil and follow a group of girls looking for adventure in the coastal metropolis of Recife. Hoping to get off the well-worn tourist trail, they hear about some hidden underwater ruins only to find that the turquoise waves of their secret Atlantis aren’t completely uninhabited.
New location? Sounds good to me, especially the ruins aspect. I wasn’t as head over heels for 47 Meters Down as some and part of that had to do with its oddly confined location, since the leads spent most of the film trapped in an anti-shark cage. Giving the next round of human shark bait some ruins to swim in and out of is a smart move. But wait! There’s more…
“We are so pleased by the huge success of 47 Meters Down; it totally exceeded all expectations,” said James Harris of The Fyzz Facility. “48 Meters Down will take the claustrophobia of cave diving and the thrill of shark encounters and move everything to the next level.”
Cave diving too! With man-eating sharks about! I’m in!
Johannes Roberts is a genre filmmaker I have had my eye on for awhile now. Storage 24 was better than it had any right to be, The Other Side of the Door was a pretty good little supernatural terror flick, and 47 Meters Down was rather effective. Roberts is currently in production on Strangers*, the follow-up to Bryan Bertino’s 2008 hit The Strangers. I can’t wait to see what he delivers with both Strangers and 48 Meters Down.
* – This seems to be the film’s current official title at the moment, although I have also seen it referred to as both The Strangers 2 and The Strangers Part II recently. Regardless of its title, it has my attention.
