Poseidon Won Me Over

Hey guys, it's Donnie...I am now officially excited to see Poseidon, Wolfgang Peterson's remake of the classic 70's flick The Poseidon Adventure. Actually, it's not really a remake so much as a re-imagining of sorts. Rather than just remake the film, they've taken the basic idea (an ocean liner gets flipped upside down by a rogue wave on New Year's Eve) and created original characters and plot devices, as well as some damn impressive effects and production values. The movie has a more than impressive cast, including Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss, (didn't he retire from acting?) Emmy Rossum, Mike Vogel, Jacinda Barrett, and Johnny Drama himself, Kevin Dillon.

So what finally won me over? Well, for the past...well, seemingly forever, Warners has been flying out website critics from different sites for a series of set visits. Nine sites were each given a day to come out, see the shooting, interview one member of the production, and then post a production video online, along with designs drawings and storyboards. Moriarty at AICN just finished the final set visit and got to interview both director of photography John Seale and director Wolfgang Peterson. Both interviews are incredibly interesting reads. If you consider yourself a film fan, if you're fascinated with the actual production process, if you have any interest in how to make a tentpole film in the digital age without totally relying the crutch of digital effects, then you absolutely should read this article. It's full of incredible detail and opinion and the way that Peterson describes the film and talks about making it...it's kind of hard NOT to catch a little bit of his excitement. Plus the guy made it a rule that everyone gets soup at 11:00 every day. How cool is that?

Click it here to swing by AICN and read the final entry in The Poseidon Journals, complete with links to the eight previous chapters. I highly recommend Chapter Five, in which Richard Dreyfuss punches CHUD's Devin Faraci in the chest. It's highly entertaining.