Poseidon (2006) -vs- The Poseidon Adventure (2005) -vs- The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

Review by Bryce Zabel 

Novelist Paul Gallico probably had no idea what he was starting when he wrote his 1969 novel, "The Poseidon Adventure." His novel was sexist, often ridiculous, trash but he definitely got what has come to be known in Hollywood as the "high concept" right: get a bunch of people on a cruise ship, turn 'em upside down, see who lives and who dies.

The Warner Bros. version of "Poseidon"NBC mini-series re-make of "The Poseidon Adventure." opened nationwide on May 12. Last November, it was the  Thirty-four years ago it was the first feature, "The Poseidon Adventure."

Over those three-plus decades, the original filmed version of "The Poseidon Adventure" became a cult classic to some people, a guilty pleasure to others, and it earned a place in the film history books for having ushered in an era of disaster films. The film which starred Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgenine, Shelly Winters, Jack Albertson, Roddy McDowell, Carol Lynley, Stella Stevens and Red Buttons is one of those films that a lot of people who saw it in the theaters have remembered fondly but, if forced to sit through it again, would be shocked at how dated and over-the-top it really is. I know because I wrote the 2005 mini-series that aired on NBC and I had the experience of watching it again with fresh eyes.

Something else I had a chance to do was to read the original Paul Gallico novel, published in 1969. All I can say about that is that it's a good thing that the original film, my mini-series take and the current feature only used it as a springboard. It's not that great and some things in it are just nuts. Like one of the characters gets raped and feels bad, after the ship capsizes, for the man who raped her. I'm not sure how that was acceptable in 1969, but it sure is out of the mainstream in 2006.

The 1972 movie is its own time-warp. Most of the women either wear red hot-pants or are forced to throw off their evening gowns and run around in red underwear. The characters all seem to argue with each other at loud volume rather than truly bond to find their way to safety. Still, I do understand why people liked it then and some are fanatical about it today. It's a popcorn movie. As for a cult status, it does seem to be, for some people, the equivalent of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" with sea water.

Which brings us to our current challengers. If you're wondering how a four-hour mini-series and a two-hour feature both got made within a year of each other by different producers, it all goes to the legal issue of "separated rights." The Larry Levinson Productions/Hallmark Entertainment people got the TV rights to the book and the Warner Brothers/Wolfgang Petersen people got the feature rights to the book and the original feature. This meant, effectively, that when I was writing the mini-series, I could use characters that were in the book, if I wanted to, but not characters who only appeared in the 1972 feature. As it turned out, a used a few with modern re-interpretations and added quite a few as well.

Budgeted at close to $200-million, the two-hour feature version probably cost nearly ten times what the four-hour TV version did to make. Even so, their key art looks pretty similar.

As the screenwriter of the mini-series adaptation, watching "Poseidon" this weekend carried with it a lot of mixed emotions. Wolfgang Petersen has brilliantly made two water pictures before ("A Perfect Storm" and "Das Boot") and the experience certainly showed off on screen. It was simply fantastic to watch from a special effects POV. The mixed emotion part was mostly that with their budget they were able to capture on film many of the things I saw in my head when writing the TV version that our limited budget just wouldn't allow. I believe the new feature had one credited and three-to-four major uncredited writers working on it, and they collectively came up with some great problems for the escapees to overcome while building on some of the originals in the book and the first feature.

Petersen's tidal wave did its job spectacularly. Not only did computers simulate that 150-foot wall of water, but they also brought to life a phenomenal wet-kiss to the Poseidon as a boat as the film's opening sequence. Some of the characters made me cringe (played by Josh Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss, Kurt Russell), but so did some of the characters from the original film and, candidly, so did the casting and direction of some of the characters from my version (played by Rutger Hauer, Adam Baldwin, Steve Guttenberg, Bryan Brown, C. Thomas Howell, Peter Weller and Alex Kingston.)

The whole tidal wave concept is a point of departure between the two feature version and the TV version. I chose a terrorist attack to capsize my Poseidon. This was a controversial decision with fans and reviewers. CLICK HERE if you want to understand the reasons for that.

The NBC version had 9.5 million viewers. If they'd paid $10 a ticket at a box office, that would have been a $95-million dollar opening. The Hollywood trades say that Warners is worried that their "Poseidon" won't make $20-million this weekend in box office (Daily Variety, "Will the Ship Hit the Fans?"). When we call TV a mass medium, this is why.

I really do love the Poseidon story, however it's told. It's been a 1969 book, a 1972 feature, a 2005 mini-series and now a 2006 blockbuster. Some stories have staying power.

What is the best version of the story? I'd like to say that it would be my original four-hour script before it got cut down to the 2 hour and 15 minute (minus commercials) NBC version if it had been shot with the "Poseidon" budget. Everything cringe-worthy in that longer version would have been beautifully rendered. But we live in a Smackdown world of what actually got on film. So...

"Poseidon" takes this one. Its characters are no worse (and some are decidedly better) than the 1972 version and there is no contest in delivering the reality of an overturned cruise ship. Since that nautical predicament is all that this concept is really about, that gives the win to 2006. As for comparing it to the NBC version of "The Poseidon Adventure," well, that's apples and oranges. The most satisfying experience, when it comes to surviving this disaster, goes to the movie which you can see in the theaters today. Don't wait for this one to come out on DVD. Go to the multi-plex with the biggest screen and the best sound system, then sit back and prepare to get wet.