Underwater (2020)
Synopsis
Trivia
- Due to the Disney purchase of 20th Century Fox, the release date was pushed to January 2020. Shooting took place in the spring of 2017. By the time it was released, almost three years passed.
- It is the last 20th Century Fox film released under its original 1935 name, before the name was changed to 20th Century Studios by Disney, after their acquisition of Fox and its assets.
- The first 20th Century Fox film of the 2020s and the only one of the decade under its original 1935 name before being renamed as 20th Century Studios.
- The little creature they capture is called a "clinger."
- Kristen Stewart shaved her head for this role.
- They shot on dark stages with no lights for the underwater scenes. They used volumetric scanning, by putting some atmosphere around the actors and letting the flashlights move through the particles. They were able to measure the approximate density about which the water should be moving around them.
- Asked what he thinks "makes a good monster" in his mind, Eubank suggests the ideal monster should represent "something big in the story, something important, something having to do with the characters." He also thinks it's important to understand what exactly the monster "wants" so that its intentions with the characters are clear.
- At the end of the opening credits, just before the director's name check, the rushing images form an alien like Scream mask as they pass.
- Norah loses her glasses in that first action beat which suggests her vision is poor from that point forward. "This was a point that we brought up, yes." They wanted to keep them on her, but they realized it just wasn't feasible with what was coming including more action and underwater shenanigans in a diving suit.
- Director William Eubank has confirmed in an interview that the sea monster seen in the movie is, in fact, Cthulhu of H.P. Lovecraft 's Mythos. Strangely, the mining company is called Tian Industries: in literature, the adjective "Lovecraftian" is used to indicate this type of cosmic horror. Also, there is a hint that the company awoke the monster on purpose: as the characters look at Chtulhu from the station's windows, the recording states "Tian Industries. We have big things in store for you". In the Cthulhu Mythos, a common trope is the existence of a powerful cult that attempts to wake him.
- There are no scenes in the entire film that take place on land.
- Against expectations, Smith (John Gallagher Jr.) survives the entire movie, despite wearing a deep-diving suit with the unlucky number 13 on it.
- From the newspaper article about the rescue of the two survivors, this film takes place in the year 2050.
- The script didn't originally open with a descent down the pipe to the ocean floor, but "we really want to create something where you feel like you're spending a while just traveling down, down, down, to sort of build that idea of how deep you really are."
- Paul's bunny was real when they first started shooting, but they swapped in the doll for safety reasons for an increasing number of shots. Eubank never told T.J. Miller that they weren't going to use the live one, so the actor treated the doll with visible reverence believing it was only a stand-in and that the film would actually show him holding a real rabbit. They're not sure if that makes Paul seem more human or more pathological.
- They mention on the commentary during the end sequence that it's great seeing Norah and Emily save the day even as they have to carry around the dead weight that is Liam "It's very progressive but also speaks to that awesome tradition in science fiction that's been more progressive." They neglect to mention that the women are in their skimpy underwear while Gallagher is wearing boxers and a shirt, but their point still stands.
- The shot at (1:22:08) reveals the giant creature outside the window with dozens of baby monsters ready to birth from its back. Eubank mentions that inspiration from nature for that design is a certain frog before adding "don't Google that" because it's kind of gross. Well I've saved you the trouble, and while there are more educational videos available online I think this is the most entertaining.
- Fan suspicion on first seeing the film was that some additional plot elements, specifically of the explanatory variety, were cut from the finished release. The scene that hints at just that occurs when Norah is separated from the team and winds up in the older, currently unused section of the base, and she finds some things in the captain's old locker. Eubank doesn't expand on that, unfortunately, but at 1:05:53 he does say "Some major nods there to people who want to get into that. A whole other mythos revealed right there." He adds only that "that's where you really get into the cosmic horror of it a bit. Obviously we take a lot of nods from Lovecraft."
- The spider in the sink was almost a moth, but "I thought a moth might be a little too Guillermo del Toro." The scene is meant as foreshadowing both the film's theme and to get viewers instantly on Norah's (Kristen Stewart) side.
- When the crew all first assemble in the central control room - the boot up sequence sound, sampled from old analogue hard drives, and originally used in Alien (1979) can be heard.
- They wanted Stewart to be barefoot through that opening run -- "which Kristen was totally down to do" -- but concerns about cutting/hurting her feet led them to create footwear painted pink to complete the illusion.
- A few scenes from another sci-fi horror flick, Aliens (1979), are similarly portrayed in this movie. When Paul (T.J. Miller) and Liam (John Gallagher Jr.) step outside the elevator to investigate a possible survivor in a crashed pod, an unknown organism suddenly jumps out from the survivor's corpse towards the audience's POV as they look closer (Alien - Kane closely observes an alien egg hatch and gets facehugged). Also, when Paul and Liam bring the unknown organism back to the elevator, the team examines it under a lighted table (Alien - Ash, Ripley, and Dallas examine the dead facehugger in a lighted table and discover it has acid for blood). The creature itself has a similar size and shape to the alien that burst out of Kane's chest in Alien
- Actors wore airtight suits for the underwater scenes, making it difficult to hear the director's commands. Each suit weighed about 140 lbs (63 kg).
Male Deaths
Female Deaths
- Kristen Stewart [Norah Price]
Posters
