Poseidon Movie

The grim "Poseidon" opening of just $22.1 million claimed any number of victims, including director Wolfgang Petersen, the disaster film genre and distributor Warner Bros. But the film's single greatest casualty may be an obscure Wisconsin investment fund on the hook for half of "Poseidon's" $160-million budget and tens of millions more in marketing costs.

IN Hollywood, it's always safest to kick a man when he's down. Last week the movie jungle was abuzz with glee over the lackluster opening of "Mission: Impossible 3," largely because Tom Cruise's popularity in Hollywood is roughly on a par with Dick Cheney's.

IN Hollywood, it's always safest to kick a man when he's down. Last week the movie jungle was abuzz with glee over the lackluster opening of "Mission: Impossible 3," largely because Tom Cruise's popularity in Hollywood is roughly on a par with Dick Cheney's.

The grim "Poseidon" opening of just $22.1 million claimed any number of victims, including director Wolfgang Petersen, the disaster film genre and distributor Warner Bros. But the film's single greatest casualty may be an obscure Wisconsin investment fund on the hook for half of "Poseidon's" $160-million budget and tens of millions more in marketing costs.

"Poseidon" tanked at the weekend box office, becoming the second big-budget movie of the early summer season to fall shy of expectations. Paramount Pictures' "Mission: Impossible III," which disappointed in its opening a week earlier, held the top spot by grossing $24.5 million in the U.S. and Canada, compared with $20.3 million for the Warner Bros. Pictures remake of Irwin Allen's 1972 disaster epic "The Poseidon Adventure."

WOLFGANG PETERSEN can't stay away from directing movies dealing with water, ships and people in peril. The German filmmaker first made his mark -- receiving Oscar nominations for direction and screenplay -- for the 1981 "Das Boot" and then returned to the sea with the 2000 hit "The Perfect Storm." Now he's hitting the waves again with the action thriller "Poseidon," a remake of the 1972 disaster film "The Poseidon Adventure," about a luxury liner that capsizes because of a rogue wave.

THE site: Stage 16 on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. The scene: A glitzy New Year's Eve party inside the ornate main ballroom of the luxury ocean liner Poseidon. The action: Lights flicker, the ballroom begins to shake, and suddenly windows shatter and torrents of water come crashing over the partygoers as broken gas lines trigger flash fires.

Joel Hirschhorn, the songwriter who shared Academy Awards for theme songs in two catastrophe-oriented motion pictures, "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno," has died. He was 67. Hirschhorn, who lived in Agoura Hills, died early Sunday of a heart attack at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, his wife, documentary producer Jennifer Carter Hirschhorn, said Monday. She said Hirschhorn had fallen Friday night and broken his shoulder.

Down the long and twisting hallway, Yul Brynner glowers defiantly as the King of Siam, a pistol-waving Roger Moore lunges as Agent 007, and the cast of "Star Trek" goes where no man has gone before. A trickle of visitors pause at the displays for a few seconds at a time, usually just long enough to admire the gleam in Ed Asner's glass eyes or the cut of Marilyn Monroe's gown. Then they move on.

Last year Warner Bros. President Alan Horn was at the top of his game. Boy wizard Harry Potter, eccentric candy maker Willy Wonka and crime fighter Batman catapulted Warner to its most profitable year. But the hot streak ended with a thud. Not even Superman could prevent a crush of movie losses that has shaken the venerable Burbank studio and its affable leader. The costly disaster movie "Poseidon," director M.

"Poseidon" tanked at the weekend box office, becoming the second big-budget movie of the early summer season to fall shy of expectations. Paramount Pictures' "Mission: Impossible III," which disappointed in its opening a week earlier, held the top spot by grossing $24.5 million in the U.S. and Canada, compared with $20.3 million for the Warner Bros. Pictures remake of Irwin Allen's 1972 disaster epic "The Poseidon Adventure."

THE site: Stage 16 on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. The scene: A glitzy New Year's Eve party inside the ornate main ballroom of the luxury ocean liner Poseidon. The action: Lights flicker, the ballroom begins to shake, and suddenly windows shatter and torrents of water come crashing over the partygoers as broken gas lines trigger flash fires.

WOLFGANG PETERSEN can't stay away from directing movies dealing with water, ships and people in peril. The German filmmaker first made his mark -- receiving Oscar nominations for direction and screenplay -- for the 1981 "Das Boot" and then returned to the sea with the 2000 hit "The Perfect Storm." Now he's hitting the waves again with the action thriller "Poseidon," a remake of the 1972 disaster film "The Poseidon Adventure," about a luxury liner that capsizes because of a rogue wave.