Poseidon
Short description
Poseidon is a disaster thriller set aboard a luxury cruise liner crossing the North Atlantic on New Year's Eve. A rogue wave, far larger than anything the ship was built to withstand, strikes the vessel and rolls it completely over. Hundreds of survivors gather in the ballroom, which remains intact below the waterline, and follow the captain's instruction to wait for rescue from shore. A small group instead decides to make its own way out through the upside-down hull: a professional gambler named Dylan Johns, a widow travelling with her young son, a former firefighter searching for his daughter, and several others who join them as the ship takes on water.
The film was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, working from a screenplay by Mark Protosevich. It followed The Perfect Storm and Troy in Petersen's filmography and reunited him with the large-scale maritime disaster material he had handled before. Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Jacinda Barrett, Richard Dreyfuss, Emmy Rossum and Mía Maestro lead a cast that numbers forty-three credited performers, with 265 credited crew members behind the production, which had a budget of 160 million dollars.
Released in May 2006, the film earned 182 million dollars worldwide, a return below its production cost. On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.7 from roughly 115,000 votes, and on TMDB a rating of 5.9 from about 2,400 votes. A critics' rating of 5.1 from 204 reviews places professional assessment slightly below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on Paul Gallico's novel 'The Poseidon Adventure' (1969).
- The wine ordered by Richard Dreyfuss's character before the disaster is Romanee-Conti, the same wine William Holden offers Robert Vaughn in 'The Towering Inferno' (1974).
- Scenes taking place inside the ship were filmed on two separate soundproof sets at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. One represented a large hall and other rooms in a normal state, the other – inverted.
- During underwater filming, Josh Lucas sustained an injury when Kurt Russell accidentally hit him in the head with his flashlight, affecting his eye.
- The English transatlantic liner RMS Queen Mary 2 served as the basis for creating the 'Poseidon' model.
- Carol Lynley, Red Buttons, and Pamela Sue Martin, who played the leading roles in the original 'The Poseidon Adventure' (1972) film, attended the premiere. Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas) running across the deck during the opening credits is a tribute to the original film, in which James Martin (Red Buttons) makes a similar run across the deck before the night of the disaster. Red Buttons starts, taking a deep breath at the railing on the deck, while Josh Lucas finishes his run at the same railing. Both characters are wearing tracksuits of the same color at that time.
- Kurt Russell's character, who is the mayor of New York in the script, is named Robert Ramsay. In 'The Towering Inferno' (1974), produced in part by Irwin Allen, who also produced 'The Poseidon Adventure' (1972), the city's mayor was also named Robert Ramsay.
- The film's producers wanted to shoot it at the Fox Baia studio in Mexico, where 'Titanic' (1997) and 'Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World' (2003) had previously been filmed, but it was booked for other projects at the required time.
- Sheila Allen, the wife of the late producer of the original film, Irwin Allen, who passed away in 1991 and had a small role in it, became the executive producer of the remake.
- Many actors and crew members suffered minor injuries and infections due to spending many hours a day in dirty water.
- The 'inverted' set was built on top of a huge water tank, which could be filled or drained in a matter of hours.
- Outdoor shooting took only one day, during which Josh Lucas was filmed jogging. These shots were subsequently integrated into a computer-generated opening panoramic shot of a massive ship.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
