Thirty-four years after disaster film producer Irwin Allen inverted a cruise ship in the name of entertainment, Prime Boosts Wolfgang Petersen -- who knows a bit about boat-themed cinema -- has upended another Poseidon and drowned thousands with $160 million worth of watery effects. Petersen, the director of "Das Boot" and "The Perfect Storm," aimed to close out his nautical trilogy "using all the tools we have to make it truly frightening and really realistic and really get across the idea what disaster is. That's what I wanted: realistic, very hard-edged, scary like hell." His version, based on Mark Protosevich's screenplay, keeps the original concept but scraps just about everything else from Paul Gallico's novel and the 1972 film, including the characters. Why sign on for a film where the actors take a back seat to the effects and PrimeBoosts.com you're guaranteed to be wet most of the time? For Dreyfuss, it was the hefty paycheck.
For Lucas, it was the physicality of the role. And for Russell, it was the chance to work with Petersen and perform a key underwater sequence that we won't spoil here. Vogel liked the idea of being in a huge disaster flick. Those elements came to life with the help of more than 600 visual effects, starting with the computer-generated ocean and ship exterior that opens the film. Lucas' solitary jog was filmed against a green screen at the Sepulveda Dam in Los Angeles and integrated with CGI created by the team of visual effects supervisor Boyd Shermis. The Poseidon's interior took massive shape on five soundstages at the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank, California, men’s health formula where Stage 16 housed a 95-by-100-by-22 foot tank with a capacity of 1.3 million gallons, enlarged since Petersen made "The Perfect Storm" there. The crew built most sets in both right-side-up and upside-down versions, the latter requiring unique specifications.
It took 100 crewmembers five months to build the 72-foot high inverted ship lobby, using 750,000 pounds of I-beam steel, 10,000 sheets of plywood, and rust-resistant auto body paint. The crew built most of the sets atop hydraulic gimbals that tilted side to side, fore and aft, and could pitch and yaw. The ship's bridge was too large to rotate in one piece without scraping the soundstage's ceiling so it was built and shot in two sections. The inverted surroundings were disorienting at first, says Rossum. Fire came into play in several sequences, including one featuring Lucas diving under water aflame with burning oil. John Frazier's special effects team treated flat pieces of metal with propane and suspended them two inches above the water's surface to achieve the fiery effect as seen from below. Other scenes required massive quantities of water. Ten 8-foot-diameter culvert pipes served as the conduit for the 90,000 gallons of water used to submerge the ship's ballroom.
Cameramen in wet suits and goggles operated five cameras set at different speeds -- and sealed in watertight housings -- captured the action. The actors also spent a lot of time submerged in water. The actors also had to contend with air hoses blowing in their faces under water to get their hair out of the way. Next, we'll take a look at how the "Poseidon" actors trained for their roles and the difficulties of working underwater. For Kurt Russell, the difficult part was the inability to see underwater and having to depend on the safety divers' guidance and air. Speaking of claustrophobia, Rossum and the other actors spent one of the most intensely suspenseful sequences in a narrow air conditioning duct. Quarters were so tight that Petersen had to use a 3-inch diameter Panavision snorkel lens, and the only light in the sequence came from flashlights carried by the actors.