"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."
—Muriel Rukeyser
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Guest Post: HOOKED ON ROMANCE (WRITING) by Alan B. Gibson

Alan B. Gibson inks a four book deal with Robin Cutler and LMBPN World Wide Publishing!



I confess. I wrote Summer Thunder on a bet, and the stakes were high. My reputation was on the line.

It was cold and damp that March evening in Scotland when I joined a group of colleagues around the fireplace. We’d wrapped up a full day of workshops and classes at a writers’ conference, and we were doing what authors do best–sitting around talking about writing.

The conversation wandered to poking fun at genres other than our own. Most of them wrote crime. I’d been writing horror/thrillers, and apparently, I made a disparaging comment about how much easier it would be to write a romance or a fantasy.

“You wouldn’t know where to start,” said someone, (a friend?).

Encouraged by three fingers of whiskey I took her insult as a dare and doubled down, suggesting that not only was I capable of writing a romance novel, I could write a romance fantasy.

“Pfft!” I said. “I’ve even got the plot.”

I didn’t know the first thing about writing romance novels, and to the best of my recollection, I’d never read one.  Stunned that after all those years of teaching and practicing yoga I could still let my ego get the best of me, I shut up and blamed my impulsiveness on the whiskey.

“So, tell us!” The woman who goaded me was my good friend, or so I thought, and I made a mental note to get back at her one day.

I had just fallen into a gigantic hole that I’d dug myself. With only seconds to climb out, I reached not very far back in my brain to an area of expertise that hadn’t failed me––a lifetime career in advertising pitching to clients.

I stood up. “Okay. A beautiful woman with lots of personal baggage sells fairy figurines in her shop at a Renaissance Festival. A mysterious, hot surfer guy walks in looking to buy fairy dust. Turns out he is an actual fairy prince, and his kingdom recently ran out. Naturally, the encounter changes both of their lives.”

“That could work,” said a publisher friend with the credentials to know. “But set it in on a beach in California instead. You’ve always got to think about the movie.”

On the spot I created a fictional beach boardwalk. I kept the fairy prince, but now in this revised version he also happens to be a champion kite surfer. The story was writing itself, and on the plane home the following day I scribbled plot and character notes. For the next few months, I was obsessed with writing the story I entitled Summer Thunder.

Nobody was as surprised as I that putting that first book together got me hooked. I had so much fun, I couldn’t stop, and I wrote three more.

If you enjoyed reading about Lily and Theos’s magical romance in Summer Thunder, I believe you’ll want to find out what happens to her best friend Greta the Witch and her run-in with a rival witch, Zsa Zsa Hadju in Summer Storm.  Summer Lightning, and Summer Cyclone complete the four-book Romance/Fantasy series, Magic at Myers Beach.

Summer Thunder will always have a special place in my heart, too, because my life partner of 31 years, read the manuscript the day before he unexpectedly died, and one of the last things he said to me was how much he loved the story and how proud he was that I’d written it.

I appreciate feedback, so please visit me with your comments. I’m easy to find because I’m all over the place.



Summer Thunder is Book 1 (of 4) in my Magic at Myers Beach romance/fantasy series. It's being released very soon. If you're looking for a novel that just may change your life, (!) AND you feel you could pop for the 99¢ special series launch price, your support will help convince my publisher that they picked a winner!

YOU CAN PRE-ORDER THE eBOOK HERE. 

MEG 2: Behind The Scenes With Steve Alten on Don't Call Us Anthony

 


Super excited to announce our guest: bestselling author, Steve Alten! He has 20 published novels under his name including "MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror". We talk about the inspiration behind his work and the upcoming launch of "MEG: LEGACY", a collection of the MEG series, and so much more! Tune in and join Tony, Cooley and our guest, Steve Alten on “Don't Call Us Anthony”

Stealing Time for Your Dream - Part 4: Where Does the Time Go?


  

Where does the time go? 

The nonproductive dreamer: "I don’t know where the time goes. 

Once your Mind’s Eye takes over: "It doesn’t go anywhere; time’s in your face all the time! It’s knowing what to do with it that counts." 

For me, keeping track of time started at Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, where the Jesuits taught us to schedule our activities in precise Accountant segments. A page from the daily list I kept for four years looked like a space-launch checklist. Every single ten-minute period all day was chockfull of activities, starting from the moment of awakening to the last minutes of making the next day’s list. 

At the end of each daily agenda, which was written in pencil, was "tomorrow's to do list": At 10:50 P.M. I allowed myself eight minutes to work on the next day’s agenda. All day I’d been jotting down notes in pencil to remind me of things that had to be scheduled for the next day. During the eight minutes at the end of the day, I created the agenda for next day. All but one of the individual items on the daily agenda are items of "micro management" (defined as what to do on the Accountant's clock when—or “objectives”). The eight minutes at 10:50 P.M. are "macro-management" --considerably less than 1% of the time available to me. 

Though it served me well as a foundation for future productivity, it’s immediately obvious that an adult living in our new millennium, in a life filled with interruptions and immediate demands, can’t live sanely for long with this excessively disciplined approach. But accurate description precedes effective prescription. 

For accurate consciousness of time-usage to arise, you must take control one way or another. As years passed, I learned I had to move on from the severe but satisfying monastic time-management methods of my Jesuit agendas. I experimented with macro management techniques --what I call "the Gordian knot style of time management": Cut through the busyness by doing the important matters first, and letting everything else take care of itself. 

The most familiar macro tool is the to-do list. It’s excellent for getting specific small objectives accomplished, but ultimately you’ll want to move on because using the to-do list to control your life ends up wasting too much time. Yes, you get the important little things done. But you can’t write, “become an internationally recognized architect” on your to-do list. The to-do list doesn’t motivate or inspire you because it doesn’t deal with goals and dreams, only with objectives. That’s why even the shortest to-do list often gets neglected, ignored, postponed, constantly "carried over" from one day to the next. There’s a rebellion going on inside you. Accomplishing the list may satisfy your Accountant, but your Visionary is longing for more and feeling cheated. 

I’ve developed two forms that can help you inventory your actual expenditure of time so that you can take charge of this most precious asset and attach it firmly to your dream plan. 

The Time Inventory Daily Work Sheet should be filled out at the end of each day, estimating the number of hours you spend on the various activities in your life. The example that follows belongs to an imaginary dreamer who wants to move from his day job as a bank teller to selling the nonfiction book he’s writing. 

When you’re filling out your own work sheet, don’t forget housework, church and/or volunteer activities, phone time, etc. If the categories here don’t sound right to you, alter them to suit your own life and activities. Don’t add up the totals beneath or to the right until the week is over. But at the end of the week, add them up. Our bank teller came up with 201 hours. Ninety percent of my career management students and clients end up with weekly audits far under or considerably over 168. 

What’s magical about the number 168? The accountant is right about this one: 168 is exactly how many hours are in the week for all of us--whether you’re the Pope, a figure skater, the President of the United States, a stock broker, a major league baseball player, a bank teller, or a hairdresser. 

The discrepancy between your count and 168 arises from your unawareness of the interaction among the three voices within your mind, the Accountant, the Visionary, and the Mind’s Eye. In his first week of keeping track, notice that our future published writer has recorded activities to fill 201 hours in the week. Where did the extra thirty-three hours come from? Now that he's admitted the discrepancy and recognized its magnitude, he's ready to get serious. Obviously he's more careful using the work sheet the second week, making sure he keeps closer tabs on where the time is going. 

Once you’ve used these work sheets for two weeks, you have an accurate enough idea of where your time is going to make use of the Actual Time Inventory Analysis Work Sheet. Fill out the Activity and Hours per Week columns using the results of your second Time Inventory Daily Work Sheet. 

Next we want to find out, on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being highest), how much each activity serves your goals. This is its Visionary Quotient. And we’re not going to fool with "Sleeping" because the right amount of sleep is essential on all fronts. 

There’s nothing magical about filling out the Visionary Quotient column. Follow your gut reaction. 

The Accountant's Quotient column rates the activity’s importance to your physical, financial, and psychological welfare. Taking writing classes, as far as our banker’s onboard Accountant’s gut reaction is concerned, has minimal present value. Your paycheck from the bank is keeping the potatoes on the table. Obviously, on the other hand, this teller's Visionary hates his day job. But notice that neither his Visionary nor his Accountant is thrilled with the twelve hours weekly this man spends on errands. Although some might rightly regard "socializing" as a valuable activity, our example obviously doesn’t. His Visionary hates it as much as he hates his day job, and his Accountant rates it only a 2. If he’s going to do anything about his socializing, he should think about socializing with different people (exchanging the coffee shop in his neighborhood for the one where the social interaction might lead to useful networking. 

The third column, presided over by your Mind’s Eye, combines the two quotients. This man’s bank job is a pain in the neck to his Visionary, but it does pay the bills--an activity the Accountant values to the utmost. It receives a 0 in the Visionary Quotient column, a 5 in the Accountant Quotient column. But your Mind’s Eye acknowledges that any activity with a combined quotient of 5 or above will not be dropped or seriously reduced in time investment, thereby keeping both serpents happy. 

The blank Actual Time Inventory Analysis Work Sheet below is for your reassessment. Fill in the categories to suit your own life. 

As it recognizes the unique power of both his Accountant’s and his Visionary’s perception of time, our teller’s Mind’s Eye knows that the yin of Accountant time and the yang of Visionary time are both valid, simultaneous, and equally important in their places and for their purposes. Telling them both that they're correct, and that they can take turns, his Mind’s Eye negotiates with the Accountant to allow a conservative, cautious amount of time during which the "success dreams" of the Visionary can be explored. Without the Mind’s Eye’s intervention, he was constantly conflicted over his use of time. With his Mind’s Eye’s help and negotiation, he begins to steal time for success, using his Goal Time Work Sheet to carve hours from the twenty-four hour clock and to mine, methodically, the breakthrough energy of the Visionary. 

Activities that rate less than a 5 in the M.E. column are subject to first-round negotiation. Let’s say you hate doing yard work, and give it a 0 Visionary Quotient and a 1 Accountant Quotient. Obviously, we’re going to find a way to get that particular activity out of your life. In our teller’s inventory, "Driving Errands" falls into this category. So he figures out a way of no longer doing errands. Instead of spending twelve hours a week on errands, he decides to do four hours of overtime at the bank to pay for someone to do the shuttle service for him. Or he moves closer to his day job. These revised decisions, which become "goals," are recorded in the Goal Time Work Sheet. Notice that by reducing "Driving/Errands" to two hours, and making a few other adjustments, he’s been able to increase Sales Calls from thirteen to twenty-four hours per week--which will inevitably advance his dream more quickly. At the same time, he’s managed to increase the percentage of time devoted to the pursuit of his dream from 16% (combining "Sales Calls," "Writing Classes," and "Reading") to 26% because he’s increased the time available to make those sales calls, but he’s also changed his way of socializing so that it serves the dream as well.

 

Time to schedule time

No time you spend is more important than the time you spend scheduling your time; and that needn’t be more than a tiny fraction of the time available to you. But scheduling your time is doomed to ineffectiveness unless you begin from the reality baseline of knowing what you’ve been doing with your time, and confronting your own lack of awareness about where your time has been going. 

The blank Goal Time Work Sheet helps your Mind’s Eye complete and memorialize its contract with Accountant and Visionary. 

Once your knowledge of your time usage has allowed you to make new goals and objectives regarding the use of time, how in this busy, busy, busy world do you enforce the objectives for yourself? How can you schedule a life that is one, long, endless shrieking, demanding interruption? After all, you can only turn off the phone for so long without losing your illusion of control, and all contact with reality. 

Next: How to make the clock of life YOUR clock.

 


China-US co-produced 'Meg 2' set for summer release

Distributors announced that the China-U.S. co-produced sci-fi monster blockbuster "Meg 2: The Trench" will arrive in Chinese theaters this summer. Its first installment was hailed as one of the best examples of Sino-American film co-production.


A new Chinese poster released for "Meg 2: The Trench" shows the giant shark. [Image courtesy of CMC Pictures]

In the highly anticipated sequel to the 2018 sci-fi giant monster horror film "The Meg," Chinese action megastar Wu Jing will join British action star Jason Statham. "Meg 2" is set to be released in China on August 4, simultaneously with North America and many other markets worldwide.

The film is directed by Ben Wheatley and loosely based on Steve Alten's 1999 book "The Trench." Although the director has changed, the sequel will see the original cast and crew return, including scriptwriters Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber, as well as actors Sophia Cai, Cliff Curtis, and Page Kennedy from the first installment.

The first installment of "The Meg" was well-received by audiences in both China and the United States, demonstrating the success of co-production, where Chinese elements were seamlessly integrated rather than forced for the Chinese market. It was regarded as a significant milestone for a Sino-American project primarily developed by a Chinese company, gaining widespread popularity.


Two new Chinese posters released for "Meg 2: The Trench" show Jason Statham and Wu Jing in action. [Image courtesy of CMC Pictures]


In North America, it grossed $145 million, while in China, it earned 1.05 billion yuan ($166.8 million), contributing to a global total of $530 million when combined with other market grosses. "The Meg" surpassed "Kung Fu Panda 3" as the highest-grossing China-U.S. co-production of all time, boosting confidence in Chinese and American filmmakers and showcasing the potential of cultural cooperation. This achievement has provided valuable insights and experiences for both the Chinese and American film industries.

In a recent interview with China.org.cn, Gillian Zhao, president of Warner Bros. Discovery China, one of the main producers of the film alongside China's CMC Pictures, emphasized the accomplishments of "The Meg" as an outstanding example of co-productions. The film, created in partnership with China's CMC Pictures, has generated revenue through various channels worldwide.

Zhao explained, "If Chinese co-produced films can achieve even greater box office returns outside of China, then our Chinese films can have higher production budgets in the future because their revenue is global." She believes that a good and universal story that transcends cultural differences and historical backgrounds will work on the global platform.


A photo released by CMC Pictures shows Wu Jing and director Ben Wheatley on the set of "The Meg 2: The Trench." [Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures]

On Tuesday, three new Chinese posters and a trailer were released, showcasing the enormous sharks and featuring lead actors Wu and Statham in action. The trailer reveals Statham and Wu teaming up to embark on an adrenaline-filled underwater journey, investigating new creatures at the bottom of the ocean and facing off against a trio of giant sharks.

Wu Jing, renowned for his roles in Chinese juggernauts like "The Wandering Earth" and "Wolf Warrior," recalled his curiosity and excitement after reading the script for the sea monster movie. Despite his childhood fear of monsters, he saw this as an opportunity to challenge himself and understand the intricate process of filming underwater.

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.

Meg 2: The Trench - Magic TV Spot

 

Meg 2: The Trench Takes Aim at The Little Mermaid in New TV Spot

Jason Statham battles a different kind of magic under the sea in the latest look at Meg 2: The Trench.




This summer, magic awaits under the sea. But rather than the enchanting vocals of Ariel, we will instead hear the terrified screams of The Meg’s latest victims in the highly anticipated sci-fi action outing, Meg 2: The Trench. The latest TV spot for Meg 2: The Trench takes aim at The Little Mermaid, drawing an amusing comparison between the two and thus making Jason Statham the latest Disney princess.

Stealing Time for Your Dream – Part 3: Work-management doesn’t work


Work-management doesn't work 

Time and work (action) are, in one essential regard, opposites. Here are the laws of time-work physics: 

1) Time is finite. We only live so long and, while we’re alive, we’re allotted only 24 hours in every day. 

2) Work—or action--is infinite. Work, whether good or bad, always generates more work, expanding to fill the time available. 

Given these physical laws, it should be obvious that action is unmanageable; that only time can be managed. Yet people regularly sabotage themselves by trying to manage action. "First I’ll catch up with my day job, then I’ll take time for my dream," or, "First, I’ll get my family in good shape, then I’ll find time for dreams." 

Don’t get me wrong. Action is what we’re trying to find time for. Writers write. Craftsmen make tables or boats or flower arrangements. Actors and models go for auditions and interviews. Salespeople make sales calls--the more calls they make, the more sales. Dreamers take treks to exotic places. Shakespeare's observation, that "action is eloquence," is not only creatively productive; it’s the best way to stay sane. Even one phone call a day in the service of your dreams, means, if you take two days off each week, 200 calls per year. That’s definitely progress toward the mountaintop. Success comes inevitably on the heels of constant action, as the ancient Greek poet Hesiod pointed out in his almanac: "If you put a little upon a little, soon it will become a lot." 

My mentor Tom Bergin (Sterling Professor of Romance Languages and Master of Timothy Dwight College at Yale) was the author of fifty-nine books by the time he retired and eighty-three by the time he died. Yet he described himself as a "plodder." He just kept plodding away, in the vein of Hesiod. Tom and I exchanged hundreds of letters from the time I left Yale to the time he died. He taught me the relentless equation between consistent, minor actions and ultimate productivity. One day, by way of complaining about having no time to do any serious work because of all the trivial errands and duties he had to attend to, he sent me a quotation from Emerson: "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." 

Against the accelerating incoming bombardment of the things of contemporary life, action happens only when we steal time to make it happen. Yet schedules, to-do lists, self-revising agendas are constantly being tested and found insufficient. They work for a while, then become ineffective. Without recognizing this reality, through the Mind’s Eye’s awareness, each time this happens it may send us into a tailspin that moves us further from success. Life delights in creeping in to sabotage our dreams if only to make sure we’re serious about them. One of my clients, after six months of working together to change her habits to become more productive, told me I was the "Ulysses S. Grant of time management." She told me that Grant wired Lincoln: "I plan to hammer it out on this line if it takes all summer"--and that his telegram was read along the way before it was handed to the beleaguered President. The jealous snoops told Lincoln, "You know, we have reports that General Grant drinks a considerable amount of whiskey." "Is that right?" Lincoln replied. "Find out what brand he drinks and send a case of it to each of my Generals." 

The human nature of time 

Archimedes: Give me a lever and I can move the world. 

Atchity: Time is the Dreamer’s lever. 

All you need to make your dreams come true is time. Using time as your most faithful collaborator begins with understanding its interactive characteristics and protean shapes. You’ll begin noticing that time behaves differently under different circumstances. When you’re concentrating, your awareness of time seems to disappear because you’ve taken yourself out of the Accountant’s time and are dealing with the Visionary whose experience is timeless. When you're away from your  quest, you become very conscious of time because your Visionary is clamoring in his cage to be released from the constraints of logical time. 

"You've got my full attention": compartments of time, time and energy, rotation, kinds of time, and linkage 

Time-effectiveness is a direct function of attention span. When you’re concentrating, giving the activity you’re involved with your full attention, you produce excellent results. When your attention span wavers and fades, the results diminish. Until you recognize that attention span dictates effectiveness, you’re likely to waste a great deal of time. 

The key to avoiding this situation is assessing how long your attention span is for each activity you engage in--and then doing your best to engage in that activity in appropriate compartments (allotments of time that you’ve found to be most productive). Since my particular career is multivalent, I pursue what I call a "rotation method” of moving among activities that support my producing, managing, writing, brand-launching, speaking, and managing my next  quest. I love all these activities, but not when I do them exclusively--each one having its own high ratio of crazy-making aspects that diminishes automatically when that activity is juxtaposed with the others. 

Except during a crisis in one of the four areas, at which point all other activities stand aside until the crisis is resolved, I find it stimulating to spend an hour working on production-related matters, then spending the next hour on calls that manage various client projects in development. I’ve also learned that it’s a waste of time to try to control things that only time can accomplish--such as making a phone call, then waiting next to the phone for a response to it; or staring at the toaster waiting for the toast to pop up. The only time you have anything approaching direct control of anything is when the ball is in your court. During that moment I focus on getting the ball out of my court into someone else’s court so that I’ve done what I need to do to make the game continue. Success is all about what you do while you’re waiting. 

Rotating from one activity to another ensures that the outreach begun in Activity A will be "taking its time" while you’re engaged in Activities B, C, and D. When the phone rings from the A call, you interrupt D to deal with it--and it’s generally a pleasant interruption, knowing that one facet of your career is vying with another for your attention.

An hour is probably an average attention span compartment for work. But the length of the particular compartments (remember that "compartments" are allotments of time given to a particular work activity) changes from time to time as your attention span for that activity evolves. During the original drafting of this book, for example, I spent two hours a day writing, whereas before I began the draft my attention span allowed me to spend only an hour or less a day thinking about the book and gathering my notes for it. 

There’s no magical formula for determining attention span; it changes as you and your circumstances change. Yet once determined, attention span is the mastering rod between the serpents, the compartment of time where past and future meet in a present that feeds from the first and nourishes the latter. 

Obviously attention span is related to your energy level at different times of day, and with regard to different activities. Activities that drain you should not be scheduled one after the other, but should alternate with activities that create energy for you. 

Energy and attention span will also be different depending on whether you’re at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a particular objective. Your attention span is most in danger of sabotaging you in the middle, where it’s easy to confuse your fatigue from the hard work of plodding forward with some sort of psychological upset caused by the process you’re engaged in. Usually that situation can be resolved by shortening the allotments of time you’re devoting to the present objective; or changing the activities around which you’re scheduling this objective’s compartments. 

When a particular compartment is nearing its end, use the last few minutes of it (when the Accountant comes back online to remind you that the time is "almost up") to jot down what you’re going to do the next time you revisit this compartment. This automatically puts your Visionary and Accountant into a percolation mode in which they bat things back and forth "in the back of your mind" while you¹re busy working in the next activity’s compartment.

Next: Where does the time go?


Jason Statham's The Meg gets special edition Blu-ray Steelbook ahead of sequel

 Jason Statham's The Meg is attacking the home video market with a new special edition 4k Blu-ray Steelbook set ahead of its sequel release.

Zavvi has unveiled this special-edition boxset with brand new Japanese artwork on the cover, available for pre-order for £24.99 ahead of release later this year.

This double-disc collection also includes the short film Chomp on This: The Making of The Meg Featurette, following Statham and director Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) on set as they filmed the disaster movie.

Other special features included in this Steelbook will be a Creating the Beast film about the special effects works used to create the megalodon shark, as well as another film about shooting the project in New Zealand.

The Meg 4K Ultra HD Japanese Artwork Edition Steelbook (includes Blu-ray)

The Meg 4K Ultra HD Japanese Artwork Edition Steelbook (includes Blu-ray)

The Meg was a surprise hit for Statham when it was released in 2018, raking in a hugely impressive $530-plus million at the worldwide box office.

As mentioned, a sequel titled Meg 2: The Trench brings back Fast X star Jason Statham as rescue diver Jonas Taylor for a second encounter with the shark — and some rampaging dinos long assumed to be extinct as well.

The sequel's director, Ben Wheatley, previously hinted at the inclusion of more extinct creatures in his film without revealing any spoilers.

"I don't think I can say at the moment what's going on, the ins and outs of it. But guaranteed, there will be a megalodon – maybe more than one," he told Den of Geek.

meg 2 the trench poster
Alon Amir//Warner Bros.

Related: How to watch Operation Fortune online at home

The returning cast (including Fear the Walking Dead's Cliff Curtis and The Upshaws' Page Kennedy) for Meg 2: The Trench will be joned by newcomers including martial arts movie superstar Wu Jing, Snowfall's Sergio Peris-Mencheta and Luther's Sienna Guillory.


via Digital Spy

Dr. Ken Atchity: Anxiety IS a Motivator

 Have a listen: Ken Atchity on WillCast Podcast Hosted by Patrick Will⁠ ⁠ 

Ken and Patrick discuss how to manage time better, what it means to be a real artist, and why The Meg took 22 years to make.⁠ ⁠ 




THE MEG Author, Steve Alten Interviewed KATU

Watch Interview Here


Megalodon- the word literally means "big teeth! Lucky for us these prehistoric 70 foot shards went extinct over 2 million years ago- or did they? Steve Alten explores this possibility in his bestselling book series, "The Meg" which has also been made into 2 movies. He joined us to give us an inside look down deep in the depths of the ocean. For more information about Steve, visit his website here.




MEG 2: THE TRENCH - OFFICIAL TRAILER



Get ready for the ultimate adrenaline rush this summer in “Meg 2: The Trench,” a literally larger-than-life thrill ride.

Dive into uncharted waters with Jason Statham and global action icon Wu Jing as they lead a daring research team on an exploratory dive into the deepest depths of the ocean. Their voyage spirals into chaos when a malevolent mining operation threatens their mission and forces them into a high-stakes battle for survival. Pitted against colossal Megs and relentless environmental plunderers, our heroes must outrun, outsmart, and outswim their merciless predators in a pulse-pounding race against time. Immerse yourself in the most electrifying cinematic experience of the year with “Meg 2: The Trench” – where the depths of the ocean are matched only by the heights of sheer, unstoppable excitement! 

Warner Bros. Pictures and CMC Pictures present “Meg 2: The Trench,” with Statham and Jing headlining an ensemble cast that also includes Sophia Cai (“The Meg”), Page Kennedy (“The Meg”), Sergio Peris-Mencheta (“Rambo: Last Blood”), Skyler Samuels (“The Gifted”), and Cliff Curtis (“Avatar” franchise).

“Meg 2: The Trench” is directed by Ben Wheatley (“In the Earth,” “Free Fire”), from a screenplay by Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber (“The Meg,” “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts”) and Dean Georgaris (“The Meg,” “Lara Croft: Toom Raider – The Cradle of Life”), and a screen story by Dean Georgaris and Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber, based on the novel The Trench by Steve Alten. 

The film is produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Belle Avery, and executive produced by Jason Statham, Cate Adams, Ruigang Li, Catherine Xujun Ying, Wu Jing, E. Bennett Walsh, Erik Howsam, Gerald R. Molen and Randy Greenberg. Associate Producers Ken Atchity and Chi-Li Wong. 

Warner Bros. Pictures and CMC Pictures present, in association with DF Pictures, a di Bonaventura/Apelles Entertainment, Inc. production, a Ben Wheatley film, “Meg 2: The Trench.” It will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures and is set to open in theaters in North America on August 4, 2023 and internationally beginning 02 August 2023.

Meg 2: The Trench’ Motion Poster Promises Trailer Later Today!

The official trailer for Meg 2: The Trench is chomping its way online later today, and while you wait, Warner Bros. has unleashed a mega-sized motion poster to whet your appetite.

Take a bite out of the motion poster below!



Meg 2: The Trench will be swimming into theaters on August 4, 2023.

Get ready for the ultimate adrenaline rush this summer in Meg 2: The Trench, a literally larger-than-life thrill ride that supersizes the 2018 blockbuster and takes the action to higher heights and even greater depths with multiple massive Megs and so much more!

Meg 2: The Trench is directed by Ben Wheatley (In the Earth, Free Fire), from a screenplay by Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber (The Meg, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) and Dean Georgaris (The Meg, Lara Croft: Toom Raider – The Cradle of Life), and a screen story by Dean Georgaris and Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber, based on the novel The Trench by Steve Alten.

The film is produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventuraand Belle Avery and executive produced by Jason Statham, Cate Adams, Ruigang Li, Catherine Xujun Ying, Wu Jing, E. Bennett Walsh, Erik Howsam, Gerald R. Molen and Randy Greenberg. Associate Producers Ken Atchity and Chi-LiWong. 


Stealing Time for Your Dream - Part 2: What is Time?





What is time?


Unlike oxygen, an element which is objectively, scientifically definable, and more or less beyond our control, time is relative to perception and subject to choice. “Time,” Melville wrote, “began with man.” The Type C (creative) Personality learns to redefine time subjectively, in order to become successful by his own standards. Objective time, dictated by Greenwich Mean Time with an occasional correction for NASA, leads only to the conformity of repetition. Subjective time alone allows us to distinguish ourselves and to achieve our dreams of success.

Logos vs. Mythos

According to the classical Greeks, the two primary ways of perceiving the world were known to them as logos (for the Accountant’s logic) and mythos (for your onboard Visionary’s simultaneity). The Visionary’s belief in eternity in every moment is what makes the dreamer’s life change from barely bearable to ever enthusiastic. “To himself,” Samuel Butler wrote, “everyone is immortal. He may know he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.” The Visionary’s eternity is the experience of mythic time that occurs when you “lose yourself” in the pursuit of your dream. Its Brer Rabbit’s “briar patch” speech: “Throw me anywhere, but please don’t throw me in the briar patch!” The briar patch, of course, is Rabbit’s favorite place, his home.

Sometimes you’ll meet an old schoolmate after years and have the experience that “it seems just like yesterday” that you were having this exact same argument, or laughing for the same reason known only to the two of you. A moment passes, as the Accountant wrests control from the Visionary: “But, on the other hand, it seems every bit like the twenty years it’s actually been.” Has it been twenty years, or was it just yesterday? Faulkner said: “There is no such thing as was; if was existed there would be no grief or sorrow.” To the Visionary, time exists always in the present.

Accountant’s time

To the Accountant, who’s kept track of the years--and also the months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds--precisely, it’s been exactly twenty years, and he can prove it by reciting all the things that have happened to both of you in the interim. The Accountant clocks time with digital precision, obsessive checks with the Internet’s time services. The Accountant’s time is what keeps society sane, if you call today’s society sane.

But when the Accountant’s insistence dominates, you are denied making your dreams come true. The Accountant, nervous about anything intangible or “unseen,” doesn’t believe in dreams; or, at best, assumes the worst about them: “They¹re only dreams.” Human beings can’t fly.


Visionary time


To the Visionary, whose relationship with that same friend is/was intense, it’s just yesterday. The Visionary clocks time only by reference to intensity. Lovers live from embrace to embrace, the time that’s passed between them not counting. Have you ever felt like life would pass you by when you’re stuck in an endless left-turn lane during rush hour? How long does a second last if you’re perched at the parachute door of a plane at 15,000 feet about to make your first jump? How long is forty seconds during a 6.6 earthquake? Or at the edge of a cliff, about to rappel for the first time? A friend of mine described an encounter with a problem customer, “I spent an eternity with her for an hour and a half yesterday.”

The Visionary brings you mythic time when you engage in your dream with all your heart, mind, and soul; when you are occupied in doing something that "takes you out of time," or "takes you out of yourself." You're literally ecstatic--which, from its Greek origins, means "standing outside" yourself. "I don't know where the time went," is what you say when you've just passed fourteen hours creating the whole magical kingdom of Timbuktu on your drawing board--and your spouse, sent by the worried Accountant to tell you you've missed an important dinner party, is banging on the door because you've taken the phone off the hook.
Like Alice's White Rabbit, the Accountant would always have you believe that you’re late for a very important date. And the Accountant doesn’t like it one bit when your Mind’s Eye stops to question how important that date may be; or, whether you made the date in the first place or whether it was made for you. Dreamers insist on making their own dates because their Mind’s Eyes (the Mind’s Eye being that part of your mind that’s aware of the conflict between the onboard Accountant and the onboard Visionary) have learned how to insure that mythic time gets preference over logical time.

You’ve had this experience: You’ve told yourself you’re just going to steal "two hours" to work on your dream. You go into the briar patch. One hour and fifty-five minutes have gone by, during which you've been lost--fully engrossed in your quest, without a thought for the outside world that operates on the Greenwich clock. The hours have passed "like a minute" (the Visionary’s way of talking makes the Accountant crazy). Then, you look up at the clock to discover that only five minutes remain of your bargained for two hours. How did you know to look up at the five-minute mark? Because your Accountant never sleeps, even when he’s been taken off duty. If you decide to remain in the mythic time of your dream work beyond the five minutes remaining--that is, beyond the exactly two hours you set aside--the Visionary has won this particular encounter. The Accountant has lost. If you decide to quit "on time," you may think the Accountant has won, and the Visionary lost.

What’s wrong with this win-lose scenario is that it’s exhausting, and impossible to maintain in the long run. Most people, faced with this constant natural strife between the two aspects of their minds, have allowed the Accountant to take over entirely as the only peaceful alternative. They’ve chosen the Accountant’s conservative, safe way of behaving because the daily battle is too costly in energy and emotion. If the Visionary "wins" the five-minute battle, for example, and you continue working on your new invention for another four hours instead of the two you’d set aside, guess how hard it’s going to be for the Accountant to agree to the next two hours you want to steal. The Accountant will use every instrument in the arsenal of procrastination to postpone the trip to your dreamer’s workshop.

How to avoid losing time


Francesco Petrarch: It is appointed for us to lose the present in the expectation of the future.


Petrarch, the first "Renaissance man" and precursor of Eckhart Tolle, was aware that we spend a large majority of our time "somewhere else" than in the present moment. Planning for the future, worrying about the past--so much so that by the time you reach middle age the two horses, Past and Future, are engaged in a life-and-death race along your internal timeline. Competing for your vitality, stealing your present. The time you spend on past responsibilities, past regrets, past relationships, eats into the time available for growth and progress toward your future goals.

If we don't recognize "what’s going on here," as Accountant time and Visionary time battle in our perceptions, we can get very confused. When we get confused, the Accountant can take control of our lives. For most people, the Accountant has been in full control. Consequently, they are frustrated, bored, caught in a rut. With the help of Mercury’s powerful wand--whose two snakes represent the taming of past and future around the strength of present awareness--the entrepreneur’s now-open Mind’s Eye can transform the bloody battlefield into the altar of your hopes and dreams. Awakening his Mind’s Eye, Jack London said:

I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

This anti-Accountant declaration is made by your Mind’s Eye--which knows that only by marrying the Accountant’s logic with the Visionary’s myth will the present be captured for effective dream work, in lieu of the Visionary wasting the present in daydreaming, or the Accountant in obsessing about the past and the future. When your Mind’s Eye takes charge of these constant time wars, productivity combines with peace of mind. The photographer Ansel Adams said, "I’m amazed at how many people have emotional difficulties. I have none. If you keep busy, you have no time for them."


Next: Work-management doesn’t work

Steve Alten will be on Coast 2 Coast with George Noory



LISTEN TO INTERVIEW


Steve Alten is the best-selling author of fifteen novels, including the MEG series and the DOMAIN series, about the Mayan doomsday calendar. In the first half, he discussed his writing career, cryptozoological creatures like the Loch Ness monster, and his battle with cancer and Parkinson's disease along with new protocols to treat them. His MEG series of novels (now available as the seven-volume collector's edition, Legacy) explores the idea that a monstrous prehistoric shark, the megalodon, still swims deep in the Mariana Trench. In 2018, the motion picture The MEG opened in theaters and became a #1 blockbuster at the box office, both foreign and domestic, grossing over $560 million, though it was a long journey to get it to the screen. The sequel MEG-2: The TRENCH opens in theaters this summer on August 4.



Alten, who has also written novels about the Loch Ness monster, has postulated that the creature is actually a giant eel, some 35 to 45 feet across, which migrated across the Atlantic Ocean from the Sargasso Sea but became trapped in the Loch and continued to grow in size. Alten also addressed his long-term medical struggles and said that certain natural herbal extracts can be helpful for combating tremors from Parkinson's. Regarding cancer, he is a strong advocate for the GC Protocol, developed by Dr. John Grinstein, a biochemist whose area of expertise has focused on the medicinal properties found in certain organic fruits and vegetables.

‘The Meg 2: The Trench’ Shows Off Jason Statham, Wu Jing And More Prehistoric Monsters

 Jason Statham makes a water jump on a jetski while armed with a sword to fight a shark. So, yeah… that kind of movie.



“The Meg 2: The Trench” is one of the more under-the-radar tentpoles this summer, even though it may end up being one of the biggest global grossers. Why is that?

Well, “The Meg” earned $155 million in North America and $155 million in China toward a $530 million global total. That cume was bigger than any giant monster movie save for “Kong: Skull Island” ($569 million in 2017) and the various “Jurassic” movies. It was the first and thus-far only big-budget Hollywood/Chinese co-production that qualified as a success on both shores. And now “The Meg 2” will try and repeat that performance.  

“They’re back for seconds,” the trailer eventually declares, echoing the tongue-in-cheek tone of the first film’s marketing campaign. The trailer opens with two land-bound prehistoric monsters eating a large bug, with onscreen text warning that for 65 million years one species ruled the world. The T-rex? No, the Meg which eats a T-rex (in what was the prologue of the first novel which didn’t make it into the first movie). Jason Statham is recruited again by Cliff Curtis to hunt another giant creature in the trench. 

But then, deep underwater, the team starts getting picked off by the biggest meg anyone has ever seen. We then get various monsters attacking by land and by sea, with Statham almost getting eaten by a shark. We get more scenes of tourists almost getting eaten, and a tentacled creature grabbing and devouring a helicopter. The teaser ends with Statham leaping into the air on a jetski to face off against a shark with a sword. 

While the franchise could be a case of “folks were just curious the first time,” it is based on Steve Allen’s long-running (eight novels between 1997 and 2022) and popular airport/beach read series about various prehistoric underwater killing machines. There is a fanbase beyond the core hook of Jason Statham fighting a giant shark in and around China.

However, this new installment, with director Ben Wheatley subbing in for Jon Turteltaub, pairs Statham with Wu Jing, who is quite possibly China’s biggest movie star.

If any Hollywood flick is going to thrive in China despite years of comparatively declining grosses, it’ll be “The Meg 2” which pairs Statham with the star of “Wolf Warrior II” ($754 million in 2017), “The Wandering Earth” ($700 million in 2019), “The Battle at Lake Changjin” ($912 million in 2021), “The Battle at Lake Changjin 2” ($626 million in 2022) and “Wandering Earth 2” ($604 million in 2023).

A pre-COVID normal box office performance for “The Meg,” think around $150 million, will be $150 million that most Hollywood releases won’t have this summer. Or, pardon the hyperbole, if “The Meg 2” plays like a local Chinese blockbuster, it may end up flirting with the worldwide totals of Hollywood’s biggest summer movie releases no matter how well it performs elsewhere.  

via The Wrap