Philippines gets special mention in Hollywood film

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Trench, the third deepest part of the world after the Mariana and the Tonga trenches, has been mentioned in the opening sequence of Warner Bros. Pictures’ giant shark thriller “The Meg,” which took the biggest bite off the Philippine box office this weekend to open at No.1.  

Starring Jason Statham, the action-thriller grossed a splashy P63.4-million for the five-day opening weekend (August 8 to 12) in only 274 screens, becoming Warner’s best opener for the year to date after “Rampage” (P59.7-M) and “Tomb Raider” (P57.6-M).
 
“The Meg” will continue playing in IMAX and 4D screens this week. Its worldwide total gross now stands at $141-M, including $44.5-M in North America.
 
Statham (“Spy,” “The Fate of the Furious,” “The Expendables” films) and award-winning Chinese actress Li Bingbing (“Transformers: Age of Extinction”) star in the science fiction action thriller directed by Jon Turteltaub (the “National Treasure” movies).
 
A deep-sea submersible—part of an international undersea observation program—has been attacked by a massive creature and now lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, with its crew trapped inside.  

With time running out, former deep-sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Statham) is drawn out of self-imposed exile by a visionary Chinese oceanographer, Dr. Zhang (Winston Chao), against the wishes of his daughter, Suyin (Bingbing), who thinks she can rescue the crew on her own. But it will take their combined efforts to save the crew, and the ocean itself, from this seemingly unstoppable threat—a prehistoric 75-foot-long shark known as the Megalodon. Thought to be extinct, the Meg turns out to be very much alive and on the hunt.  
 
Five years before, Jonas had encountered this same terrifying creature, but no one had believed him.  Now, teamed with Suyin, Jonas must confront his fears and risk his own life to return to the ocean depths, bringing him face to face once more with the apex predator of all time.

Prior to “The Meg,” 2016 Hollywood film “USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage” starring Nicolas Cage has documented the worst shark attack in world history, when around 600 survivors of sank US cruiser Indianapolis were killed by sharks in Leyte Gulf, the Philippines, in 1945.