|
WOLFGANG PETERSEN:
“I didn’t want to do the book, it’s the late ‘60s; it’s a different world. I didn’t want to use the film, because with all respect, when you look at the Irwin Allen film now you look at it with a smile. So I said, ‘Let’s make a movie where you don’t smile when the boat goes over, and you go with these people through the situation, using all the tools we have to make it truly frightening and realistic’.”
JOSH LUCAS (Dylan Johns):
“I think there’s a real sense of physical truth in this movie. There’s nothing fake, we’re there. All those environments are real, all that fire, all that water. We were hurt, everyone was sick the whole time.”
RICHARD DREYFUSS (Richard Nelson):
“This was easily the most uncomfortable and by far the most physically dangerous [movie I’ve ever done]. It was less about dialogue and more about falling, running, drowning, screaming, hitting, yelling and dying.”
KURT RUSSELL (Robert Ramsey):
“I got an old kind of H-influenza, and I got a throat infection, I got really sick. And because we just kept going I got pneumonia, but I was fortunate in that I had 10 days off so I could get healthy to come back in good shape for all the underwater stuff I had to do.”
EMMY ROSSUM (Jennifer Ramsey):
“It’s funny, because obviously I read the script and knew it was going to be difficult, but I didn’t know how difficult it was going to be. We did 90% of our stunts. That’s me swimming across that big chasm with the broiling water underneath. I had to show the guys that girls aren’t wusses.”
WOLFGANG PETERSEN:
“At some point we were contacted about Ernest Borgnine [who appeared in the original movie] doing a cameo, but it fell apart; he was sick or something like that. But I did kill Sheila Allen, Irwin Allen’s widow, in the film. She dies in the ballroom when the windows break and all the water comes in.”
LUCAS:
“We couldn’t see underwater, so Kurt at one point swung his metal flashlight back and tore open my eye. And you can see it on camera, but they cut at the point where it explodes and starts pouring blood down my head. They had to shut down the production for that day and I had stitches.”
RUSSELL:
“I didn’t even know I’d hit him. We came up and Josh was bleeding profusely. I was like, ‘What happened to you?’ He said, ‘I think you hit me with your flashlight.’ I was like, ‘Probably. I don’t know!’”
PLEASE NOTE:
There will be 10:00 pm and midnight showings on Thursday, May 11th in multiple markets.
The film will open in IMAX the same day as it does in 35mm, May 12th. As some of you have seen, the movie is quite impressive in IMAX, particularly the wave. Moviegoers may experience the suspense in regular theaters' opening weekend, then seeing it a second time in IMAX gives an entirely different experience.
| 
THE CONCEPT:
