Say what you will about Wolfgang Petersen, but he knows how to give the people what they want. He pretty much defined mid-90s action movies-- In the Line of Fire, Air Force One, and OK, Outbreak wasn’t exactly an action movie—and he drowned George Clooney under a giant wave in The Perfect Storm. And come on guys, you gotta admit that you were cheering for Brad Pitt to kick Eric Bana’s ass in Troy, despite how silly the whole thing was.
After his remake of Poseidon was a pretty significant flop, Petersen seems to be aiming to get back in hit-making form. Variety reports that he’ll direct Uprising, a futuristic action thriller about humans who strike back against the aliens who have occupied the earth. I am now saying, in my best Harrison Ford growl, “Get off my planet!” Charles Leavitt, who wrote the realistic thriller Blood Diamond, is making a change of pace by writing the screenplay for this one.
Honestly, to channel the Bostonian I’ve never been, this sounds wicked awesome. Aliens? Grand battles? Triumph of humanity? This sounds like exactly what Petersen does best. With all the recent obsession with fantasy and comic book heroes, it’s been a while since we had an honest-to-God sci-fi action-adventure movie. Can Petersen get over his Poseidon mistakes and make this Harrison-Ford-vs.-the-bad-Russian levels of awesome? If they include the “Get off my planet” line, the answer is absolutely yes.
