Londoners horrified as three enormous shark fins spotted in the River Thames

01 August 2023 , 09:10

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Londoners horrified as three enormous shark fins spotted in the River Thames

Londoners were stunned to see three enormous shark fins appear in the River Thames this morning.

Commuters were stopped in their tracks at the sight of the giant fins swimming down the river and eerily circling boats between Butler’s Wharf and Tower Bridge in the capital.

But while they might have caused panic to unsuspecting onlookers, no one’s life was really in danger – as the spectacular creations were later revealed to be a stunt by Warner. Bros Pictures to promote their latest movie, Meg 2: The Trench.

The three massive hand-sculpted fins and back sections were crafted in the style of the film franchise’s iconic Megalodon sharks, also known as ‘Megs’. The biggest fin in the river stood at a jaw-dropping 4.5m above water, with their body sections spanning 20 metres long.

Giant shark fins in the river Thames sparked alarm on Tuesday morning (Getty Images)

Meg 2: The Trench, starring hardman Jason Statham in the lead role, is the sequel to The Meg, which took a massive bite out of the box office when it was released in 2018 raking in a cool £454 million.

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A synopsis for the film reads: "A research team encounters multiple threats while exploring the depths of the ocean, including a malevolent mining operation." While the first film in the franchise saw scientists battle one giant prehistoric shark, the sequel will see them face a number of monstrous fish.

Now fans can watch Statham in action again as he reprises his role as Jonas Taylor, a former US military marine who joins a daring research team on an exploratory dive into the deepest depths of the ocean.

The giant fins were a publicity stunt to highlight upcoming movie Meg 2: The Trench (Getty Images)

But their voyage spirals into chaos, and pitted against even more colossal Megs, the heroes must outrun, outsmart and outswim their merciless predators in a pulse-pounding race against time.

Speaking about filming The Meg franchise, 56-year-old Statham revealed it’s his perfect movie role getting to be in the water so much as he is a “huge Scuba-diving fanatic” in real life.

“I play this diver called Jonas Taylor who specialises in rescue missions. He gets brought in to save the crew at the bottom of the ocean that’s confronted with this 75-foot shark. Taylor encountered this shark many years ago, but everyone thought he was crazy. Turns out, everybody was wrong!” he said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

Although the movie is made using CGI, the cast got up close and personal with real-life sharks in preparation for filming when they took a trip to Fiji to dive with bull sharks.

Jason battles huge sharks - known as Megs - in the movie (Warner Bros. Pictures/AP)

Statham revealed: “They hand feed them and it’s a spectacular thing to see. These things are three metres in length, huge big things – when you’re in the ocean, and you’re like six, eight, 12 inches away from these things, it’s quite an ordeal.

"There were 20 or 30 of these things and they were hand-feeding them big tuna heads. We got very very close and it was a spectacular moment”.

Meg 2: The Trench will be released in cinemas in the UK on August 4

Katie Wilson