Feeling a bit of deja vu? A bit of a glitch in the matrix? You’re not alone. Earlier this year a trailer was released for Greenland, an upcoming disaster pic starring Gerard Butler who was reteaming with his Angel Has Fallen director Ric Roman Waugh. It was your typical big-budget disaster blockbuster: Massive comet about to hit the Earth and wipe out humanity, ruggedly handsome hero tries to save his family from the apocalypse as society breaks down – in this case, by getting them to a bunker in Greenland.
As a sucker for these types of films though (they’re my cinematic junk food) and having read about the production a few months before, I was intrigued to watch this trailer… Except I couldn’t. For some unknown reason, production company STX Entertainment erased every trace of it from the internet mere hours after release. When I recently did a round-up of movies still releasing in 2020, the only copy of the trailer I could find was an embedded version in bonkers conspiracy theory post on Reddit. Maybe STX felt that releasing a trailer for a movie about a global disaster right as the world was getting thrown into an actual global disaster was a bit too on the nose?
That sounds like a legit reason… except we’re still very much in the midst of that global disaster and now STX has officially released the trailer again. I guess marketing trumps social sensitivity! Check it out below!
A family fights for survival as a planet-killing comet races to Earth. John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his estranged wife Allison (Morena Baccarin), and young son Nathan make a perilous journey to their only hope for sanctuary. Amid terrifying news accounts of cities around the world being leveled by the comet’s fragments, the Garrity’s experience the best and worst in humanity while they battle the increasing panic and lawlessness surrounding them. As the countdown to global apocalypse approaches zero, their incredible trek culminates in a desperate and last-minute flight to a possible safe haven.
Based on his filmography (the previously mentioned Angel Has Fallen, Snitch, Shot Caller), Waugh is very much a serious filmmaker. I’m hoping though that for this film he finds a way to stick at least a tiny bit of his tongue in his cheek and gives us a scene where Butler’s John Garrity has to deal with the inevitable disaster denier found in these movies who inevitably will need to be saved as well. Only instead of saving this person, Butler just yells “THIS! IS! GREENLAND!” before kicking said person off a cliff. If that happens, this will be movie of the year without a doubt.
Even if that dream sequence doesn’t play out though, this still looks exactly like the type of explosive disaster movie action thriller I love to just switch my brain off for and have some thrills with. Waugh and screenwriter Chris Sparling does appear to be keeping things more dramatic though, but that’s not a bad thing. Especially when Greenland actually has a solid supporting cast featuring the likes of Morena Baccarin and Scott Glenn.
Officially, Greenland is still scheduled for release on 14 August, but the trailer and first poster below just claims a far more nebulous “coming soon”, meaning it could get bumped back. That may not be such a bad idea, since 14 August would mean Greenland goes up against Chris Nolan’s Tenet after the latter film’s recent delay. Let’s hope that doesn’t turn into a disaster at the box office for Butler and co.
Last Updated: June 26, 2020
