Deep Blue Sea
Short description
Deep Blue Sea centres on a remote offshore research facility called Aquatica, where a team of scientists experiments on sharks in the hope of finding a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. Led by Dr. Susan McAlester, the group has altered the animals' DNA to enlarge their brains, a shortcut that crosses ethical lines and produces consequences nobody planned for. The sharks become quicker and smarter than their kind should be, and when a storm damages the station, the team is left trapped with the creatures they created.
Renny Harlin directed the film, the ninth of the twenty-eight features he has made in chronological order, following The Long Kiss Goodnight and preceding Driven. Duncan Kennedy and Donna Powers wrote the screenplay with Wayne Powers, and Akiva Goldsman produced alongside Tony Ludwig and Alan Riche. Saffron Burrows plays McAlester, with Thomas Jane, LL Cool J, Samuel L. Jackson, Jacqueline McKenzie and Michael Rapaport among the cast of twenty-one credited performers.
Released in July 1999, the film runs 105 minutes and blends action, horror and science fiction. Made for about 60 million US dollars, it took roughly 165 million worldwide, a strong return on its budget. Ratings are moderate and broadly aligned: 5.9 out of 10 on IMDb from around 151,000 votes, 6 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller sample, and 6 out of 10 from 116 film critics' reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- The filmmakers studied footage of real mako sharks frame by frame, then used equipment and technologies typically employed in the creation of Boeing 747 passenger liners to build autonomous shark models. The models, remotely controlled, had engines with a power output of 1,000 horsepower. Each model weighed over 3.5 tons and could reach speeds of nearly 50 km/h in autonomous mode. A total of 4.5 models were created: three mako models over 4 meters long each (these were the first-generation sharks) and one and a half models of almost eight-meter sharks of the second generation.
- When the shark attacks Jim Whitlock, it bites off his arm at the elbow. But then it's shown that his arm has been bitten off completely.
- Originally, it was assumed that Saffron Burrows would play the main character, but according to director Renny Harlin, the audience strongly disliked the film's ending during preview screenings, which surprised him greatly. Viewers believed that since Burrows' character was to blame for everything that had happened, she should be the one to die. The plot was immediately changed, some footage was reshot, and Burrows' character died in the shark's mouth. Some scenes with this character were even cut from the film altogether to make Saffron Burrows less sympathetic to the audience.
- Three sharks in the film are killed in the same ways as in "Jaws", "Jaws 2", and "Jaws 3": one is blown up, the second is killed by electric shock, and the third is burned.
- For one scene, Thomas Jane had to swim alongside a real shark. He was only allowed to approach it after he had finished all other filming.
- When Carter pulls the license plate from the shark's mouth, he is wearing flippers. Then he climbs the ladder and is suddenly wearing sandals.
- When Carter was opening the elevator doors with a knife, the knife broke and he threw it away. In the final scene, when he is lying on the wreckage, the same knife is hanging from his right leg.
- Screenwriter Duncan Kennedy wrote the script after witnessing a shark attack on a person near his home, of whom very little remained. After this incident, he began to have nightmares in which he saw himself in a corridor with telepathic sharks. Kennedy decided to write a script that would not repeat the plotline of Steven Spielberg's classic horror film 'Jaws' (1975). Warner Bros. acquired the script at the end of 1994, but work on the film began two years later.
- The plane used for filming is the same one that was used in "Six Days Seven Nights" (1998).
- According to Renny Harlin, the idea to kill Samuel L. Jackson's character was inspired by the death of Tom Skerritt's character in Ridley Scott's science fiction film 'Alien' (1979), where he played Dallas. Both characters were leaders, the death of each plunged the survivors into despair, both were the most famous actors in their respective creative teams at the time of filming, and the death of each was unexpected and therefore even more shocking. Seeing the audience’s reaction to the death of Jackson's character, Renny Harlin realized he had not made a mistake with this plot point.
- The license plate retrieved from the shark's mouth is the same one as the tiger shark in "Jaws."
- Samuel L. Jackson was offered the role ultimately played by LL Cool J. The actor didn't like it, so the role of Russell Franklin was written specifically for Jackson.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
