Summer Of The Shark
West Palm Beach, FL, May 23, 2016 — It was the most fearsome creature ever to inhabit the planet; a 70-foot, fifty-ton prehistoric Great White shark. Its jaws were large enough to devour an elephant whole and were filled with 7-inch razor-sharp teeth. And if that doesn’t scare you, consider this – Carcharodon Megalodon may still be out there, inhabiting the unexplored deep waters of our oceans.
You’ll be hearing a lot about Megalodon this summer. Warner Brothers just announced that they have greenlit MEG, a monster shark movie based on the NY Times and international best-seller, written by Steve Alten. Directed by Jon Turtletaub (best known for the National Treasure movies), the movie will star Jason Statham (Transporter, Spy) and Chinese actress Fan Bingbing (X-Men: Days of Future Past).
Gravity will distribute the film in China, while Warner will release it throughout the rest of the world.
There’s also two new MEG novels set to be released in bookstores. The first is an all-new expanded edition of the original MEG, completely rewritten by Steve Alten which features a never-before-published prequel entitled MEG: Origins. Says Alten, “I had written Origins a few years ago but it was only 80 pages, too short to print. Knowing the movie announcement was coming, I decided to release a new version of MEG with the prequel. But when I combined the two novels, the writing didn’t mesh, the prequel having been written by a far more seasoned writer. So instead of simply adding the prequel, I ended up spending four months doing something I had been wanting to do for a long time – rewriting the entire novel, adding new scenes and developing the characters. I also added artwork commissioned over the last twenty years, along with an eye-popping surfer cover taken straight out of pages of the book. The result is an entirely different reading experience.”
The new version of MEG is published by VIPER press. In June, TOR/Forge will release Alten’s fifth MEG novel, MEG: NIGHTSTALKERS in hardback. A few weeks later, Discovery Channel runs their annual Shark Week, followed by SHARK CON in Tampa, Florida July 9 and 10, where Alten will be one of the featured speakers. In late August the MEG movie begins filming in New Zealand, with regular updates reported for all the “MEGheads” out there, many of whom have been reading the books since middle school and high school through Alten’s non-profit, Adopt-an-Author.
“Adopt-an-Author is a free reading program designed to get even the most reluctant teen to read,” says Alten, the program’s founder and director. “It started back in 1998 when I began receiving hundreds of emails from students who were all saying the same thing; that they hated reading until they read MEG. Then teachers reached out, telling me they were using the book as part of their curriculum with surprising success. When I learned that the Young Adult Library Services Association had named MEG as a top selection for reluctant readers, I realized I needed to get involved.”
Adopt-an-Author offers secondary school teachers free curriculum materials, tests, quizzes, classroom posters, interactive websites, and direct contact between students and the program’s author via email, Skype, personal visits, and in-class calls via speaker phone. “From a dozen teachers in 1998, we’ve now surpassed ten thousand, almost all from word of mouth. Most important, the program works because it makes reading fun.”
Teachers interested in the program can register (it’s free) at www.AdoptanAuthor.com.
Alten’s interactive website is located at www.SteveAlten.com.
About the Author:
Steve Alten is the NY Times and International best-selling author of fifteen novels, including the MEG series and the DOMAIN series, about the Mayan 2012 doomsday calendar, which was #1 in Spain, Mexico and Argentina. He is also founder and director of Adopt-an-Author, a secondary school reading program used by thousands of teachers in the U.S.
###
