For filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen, Poseidon raises an intriguing and personal question: What would you do if the whole world turned upside down? “Would you be a courageous leader or a follower? Would you panic? Would you give up or keep on going?”
The acclaimed director of Troy, The Perfect Storm and Air Force One, Petersen rose to international prominence with the tense 1981 World War II submarine drama Das Boot, which earned him Oscar nominations for both direction and screenplay. A master storyteller acutely interested in human nature, he returns to the sea with Poseidon to focus not only on the power of a massive rogue wave that overturns a luxury cruise ship in open water, but on the intense dramas that play out among a small group of people fighting to survive in its aftermath. “In a disaster you really get to see who people are inside, with the artifice and the normal conventions of life stripped away,” he says. “Life-or-death decisions are made in seconds. When you see how people react and how they behave in extreme situations you know what they’re made of.”
“The Poseidon passengers came aboard to celebrate,” Petersen sets the stage, noting that Poseidon’s passengers are on the kind of cruise people take not to reach a destination but rather to enjoy the luxury and leisure of the journey itself. “It’s New Year’s Eve and they are beautifully dressed and ready to have fun. Everyone has plans for the future.” Indeed, as the clock strikes midnight even members of the ship’s staff take a minute for their own impromptu celebrations in the hallways and kitchens off the Grand Ballroom where guests gather to ring in the new year.
“All of a sudden they are attacked by a monster wave and everything is turned upside down. Things are hanging from the ceiling, falling down or peeling away from the walls, and there are gas leaks, steam, smoke and fires. Imagine your whole life changing in an instant and you must deal with the unthinkable. Nothing is where it should be and you are totally disoriented. It’s an apocalyptic world.”
Heightening the sense of panic, Petersen explains, is their confinement. “This is not something a person can run away from. Trapped within a closed environment where there is no escape, no help and very little time, they are forced to deal with it by themselves.” What begins as an immense and spacious setting becomes suddenly small and claustrophobic, broken into disconnected pockets of air and clogged passageways. “The movie starts with thousands of people, then hundreds, and then it becomes just a handful as everything draws tighter and more intimately focused.”
“The story taps into our primal fears – fire, drowning, falling, being trapped, being helpless,” says Poseidon producer Akiva Goldsman. Most recently a producer on Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Goldman’s screenwriting credits include an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award for A Beautiful Mind and a BAFTA nomination for 2005’s Cinderella Man. “Even if you never intend to set foot on a ship, these are disaster scenarios that could potentially find you anywhere.” On that level, adds producer Mike Fleiss (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hostel), “It’s a monster movie, but in this case the monster is water and it’s chasing them to the finish. It was Wolfgang’s intention to bring as many genuinely terrifying elements as possible into play.”
Movie Database
In Theaters
