Will giant shark whip up a wave of U.S.-China films?

‘The Meg’ is on track to set a box-office high for co-productions.

A movie about a giant shark wreaking havoc on a tourist town is this year’s surprise summer hit. Sound familiar? That’s what its Chinese producer was hoping for.

“The Meg,” which became a hit in both the U.S. and China, has drawn $314 million globally as of Sunday and toppled Tom Cruise’s latest “Mission Impossible” installment in North American cinemas. Since its Aug. 10 opening, it has become the biggest shark film since the 1975 blockbuster “Jaws.”

Less known is that the science-fiction deep-sea thriller is also on track to become the most successful co-production between Hollywood and Chinese moviemaking houses, reviving prospects for an emerging area of cinema that has seen its fair share of misses. Executive producer Jiang Wei says part of the formula for making such joint ventures successful is to go easy on cultural references.

“I knew the subject was very suitable for co-productions: adventure, sci-fi, sharks,” Jiang, who was president of Gravity Pictures when it co-produced “The Meg,” said in an interview last week. “It doesn’t involve many cultural, educational or national issues.”

Given Hollywood’s penchant for imitation, “The Meg” may spawn imitators and more bets on co-productions that deftly weave in Chinese elements without hard-to-get cultural references. The film’s success in winning coveted co-production status also shows China’s film authorities, who decide which movies qualify, don’t always demand unmistakably Chinese cultural references.

“The Meg,” co-produced with Warner Bros., tells the story of an oceanic research team off the coast of China encountering a 75-foot prehistoric shark. The Meg, or megalodon, threatens thousands of tourists frolicking in Sanya Bay.

The film “reasonably” melds Chinese cast and elements with Hollywood production and distribution flair, a blend that accounts for its success, said Jiang, who has left Gravity and now heads Wanda Pictures and the China subsidiary of billionaire Wang Jianlin’s Legendary Entertainment.

After reading the 1997 bestseller “Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror” in 2014, he concluded that it would be ideal for a co-production, partly because it had a universal theme with very few culturally specific references.

Hollywood filmmakers have tried including Chinese elements, from simply adding Chinese cast to setting films in China or making Chinese scientists the heroes, as in “The Martian.”

Jiang’s culture-lite formula contrasts with that of “The Great Wall,” the most expensive live-action feature film that joined Hollywood and Chinese studios. Starring Matt Damon, the $150-million action epic, based on Chinese mythological themes and involving one of China’s best-known cultural landmarks, flopped in North America last year, heightening the sense that co-production success is elusive.

Co-productions help Hollywood capitalize on China’s fast-growing film market, the world’s second largest. Under such deals, studios get a bigger slice of box-office revenue than when they simply export a film to China. Such films also are eligible for more favorable release dates in China.

The 2016 animated film “Kung Fu Panda 3,” with a worldwide gross of $521 million, still stands as the biggest co-production. “The Meg ” has become the largest live-action co-production.