From "Jaws" to "The Meg," films about killer creatures from the ocean's depths are meant to be bloody ... but not too bloody. While "Jaws" boasts a somewhat surprising PG rating, "The Meg" is only one step away at PG-13. However, according to the latter's director Jon Turteltaub, there was a gorier R-rated version of "The Meg" that never saw the light of day.
In an interview with Bloody Disgusting, he revealed that, in the original script, the 75-foot-long prehistoric shark enjoyed a number of brutal kills — including the decapitation of a leading character — that aren't seen in the final cut. Ultimately, the reason for this is simple: the watered-down version allows "The Meg" to be accessible to more audiences.
Turteltaub said, "We realized there's no way we're keeping this PG-13 if we show this. It's too fun a movie to not let people who don't like blood and people who are under, say, 14 years old into the theater." He added, "My wife is glad about it and I'm glad my kids can see the movie, but the number of really horrifying, disgusting and bloody deaths we had lined up that we didn't get to do is tragic."
Those hoping to see the discarded death scenes in an extended DVD or Blu-ray cut will be disappointed. Jon Turteltaub told Bloody Disgusting that the visual effects needed to bring such scenes to life are too costly to only serve as bonus footage.
As for "Meg 2: The Trench," which follows Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) as he and his research team are faced with fresh undersea predators, the sequel follows suit with a PG-13 rating. In an interview with Total Film, director Ben Wheatley stressed that, although he's the man behind the R-rated horror flick "In the Earth," the new "Meg" installment is once again geared toward a wider audience.
"The thrill side of it is important. But it's summer thrills, rather than gory thrills," he said. "Things can still be edge-of-your-seat without them having to be what happens in 'In the Earth.' That's what we've been concentrating on — the handling of tension, of action and looking at a lot of ... well, basically [Steven] Spielberg."
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