Things aren’t looking good for the Jaws meets Jurassic Park giant shark movie Meg. After a very brief burst of interest last year when the owner of an increasingly minor movie website got involved in the film as a producer, the movie has sunk straight to development hell. New Line Cinema originally picked up the pic with the intention of having it out and ready in 2006, but the movie fell victim to escalating costs and bottomed out.

Most of the life has gone right out of the project since, but Variety says there’s some small hope that it might get made this spring or summer. Nothing’s certain at this point, but a 2008 release date is probably the best Meg can hope for... if it gets one at all.

So what sets this man-eating shark movie apart from all of the others? It’s based on a lousy book by Steve Alten and oh yeah, the shark is really really big. Why bother making it? Does the fact that the shark is bigger make this somehow better than all the other giant man-eating insert-creature-here movies released every other month? Probably not. The book’s author Steve Alten has the real reason for its existence. He’s working on a sequel and tells Variety, “I need the movie to generate publicity for that book,” he says.