According to The Hollywood Reporter, the shark cage dive movie from June this last summer, 47 Meters Down (2017), will be getting a sequel, and it’s going to be called… wait for it… 48 Meters Down.

For those of you who don’t know, 47 Meters Down starred Mandy Moore (Nicholas Sparks’ A Walk to Remember (2002)) and Claire Holt (The Vampire Diaries (2009-17)) as two sisters that for some head-scratching reasons revealed in the film decide to go shark cage scuba-diving while on vacation in Mexico, and the cage drops, ya know, 47 meters down, to the sea floor, where they have to find a way to survive and get to the surface.

Amidst those Sharknado movies we have still been getting our share of quality shark thrillers the last few years, including last year’s The Shallows (2016) starring Blake Lively facing off one large and angry shark. While this writer personally preferred The Shallows to 47 Meters Down due to overall superior acting performances, cinematography, and production value, 47 Meters Down was admittedly still a fun and frightening time at the movies, with a surprising twist in the final act of the movie that caught most if not all audiences off guard.

It’s great to see that despite being a smaller, independent film, 47 Meters Down was obviously met with enough success and interest to garner the profits for a sequel. Whether or not the sequel will feel like a retread or not remains to be seen, although there is some hope for originality. Based on conversations with returning director Johannes Roberts, 48 Meters Down will not focus on the same characters (If you have seen the first film this makes complete sense, and even if you haven’t, it should make complete sense. Most people who have to fend off sharks don’t return to do it again, other than maybe Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) in Jaws 2 (1978)). Instead, the sequel will focus on a group of girls looking for underwater ruins in the waters of Brazil, which unfortunately but as to be expected will boast some of our favorite dorsal-finned critters (sharks). This sounds promising, even if not as realistic as the first film, and certainly more adventurous, plus that added meter of depth. Seriously though, shark movies are great when they’re made well, and it sure is a blast to be getting them seemingly every summer now. For what it was, 47 Meters Down was a thrilling ride, so we have great expectations for the surprising sequel.

48 Meters Down does not yet have a confirmed release date, but according to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), it will be releasing next year in 2018, a year that has another shark movie on the slate entitled Meg (2018) about a 70-foot shark that will star Jason Statham and will be directed by Jon Turteltaub (Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer’s National Treasure films (2004-07)), swimming into cinemas on August 10, 2018.

Be sure to check out PopWrapped’s review of 47 Meters Down here.