8 Upcoming Horror Movies That Could Steal IT's Box-Office Crown

Part creature-horror, part action-thriller, the upcoming Meg sounds absolutely ridiculous on the surface.

A story about Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) and his encounters with a bloodthirsty 70-foot shark, the movie will bow on 10 August 2018, placing it just outside the stacked July window and giving it a bit more room to breathe.

There are a number of factors that could make Meg a monster box-office hit. Jason Statham has never been more popular thanks to the Fast And Furious franchise, and there hasn't been a big-budget shark movie with that blockbuster feel since... Deep Blue Sea? That was in 1999, and was only budgeted at $82 million, and with Meg estimated to cost close to $150 million, a shark film on this scale has literally never been attempted before.

That makes Meg one-of-a-kind, and, like the icon-centric movies we already mentioned, it could generate plenty of success based on the marketing power of its appealing central beast. The ability to be known as "that giant shark movie" is a great USP, and will earn Meg plenty of headlines, tweets and comments in today's share-happy online culture.

However, the biggest factor in the equation is the fact that Meg is co-produced by a Chinese film company, features Chinese lead actors, and will be released in China months before it opens anywhere else.

China has become the single most bankable international market for Hollywood movies, and with Meg prominently featuring the country in several ways, it will surely find enormous financial success throughout its theatrical run.