The long in development giant shark movie MEG has found its female lead. It’s being reported that Sirens and The Vow star Jessica McNamee has joined the cast of the Warner Brothers title, which is based on the Steve Alten book MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror.

McNamee joins Jason Statham, who’s set for the male lead, and Fan Bingbing on the cast. The movie was set to be helmed by Hostel and Cabin Fever director Eli Roth, but he departed the project a handful of months ago. Roth left due to budget concerns after Warner Bros., coming off a rough year at the box office, wanted to pull things back a bit on the expected $100 million MEG budget. Now the movie will be made by Cool Runnings, National Treasure and its sequel, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice director Jon Turteltaub.

Here’s a description of the book the movie is based on:

On a top-secret dive into the Pacific Ocean’s deepest canyon, Jonas Taylor found himself face-to-face with the largest and most ferocious predator in the history of the animal kingdom. The sole survivor of the mission, Taylor is haunted by what he’s sure he saw but still can’t prove exists – Carcharodon megalodon, the massive mother of the great white shark. The average prehistoric Meg weighs in at twenty tons and could tear apart a Tyrannosaurus rex in seconds. Written off as a crackpot suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Taylor refuses to forget the depths that nearly cost him his life. With a Ph.D. in paleontology under his belt, Taylor spends years theorizing, lecturing, and writing about the possibility that Meg still feeds at the deepest levels of the sea. But it takes an old friend in need to get him to return to the water, and a hotshot female submarine pilot to dare him back into a high-tech miniature sub. Diving deeper than he ever has before, Taylor will face terror like he’s never imagined, and what he finds could turn the tides bloody red until the end of time. MEG is about to surface. When she does, nothing and no one is going to be safe, and Jonas must face his greatest fear once again.

MEG is currently scheduled for a March 2, 2018 release.

[Source: Variety]