A scene from  The Meg. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Chinese A-lister Li Bingbing plays a scientist who has a romance with the diver, and the cast also includes Jessica McNamee, Rainn Wilson, Winston Chao and Cliff Curtis. Li, alongside Turteltaub and Statham, attended a promotional event in Shanghai on July 17.

Arguably one of the best-known Chinese actresses in the West, Li said she had to put in a lot of English practice to perform the dialogue fluently. She also revealed that she came close to drowning after staying underwater too long during the shooting of one complex scene.

The movie was filmed in Auckland, New Zealand and Sanya, in South China's Hainan province.

The two trailers released for the domestic and international markets both feature the landmark Guanyin of Nanshan, a 108-meter statue of the bodhisattva Guanyin－the Buddhist goddess of mercy.

Beside the scenes involving the megalodon, the movie also features some rarely-seen oceanic animals such as a giant deep-sea squid and glowing jellyfish.

To prepare for the underwater sequences, Statham, a former athlete with the British national diving team, went to Fiji to swim with dozens of bull sharks, a species famous for their aggressive nature.

"I wanted to feel the fear and anxiety. I wanted to come face to face with these creatures. I just thought it was a necessary thing to do. We are doing a movie about the ocean, so let's get into the ocean," he says.