THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060028
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: 146 lines
A FORCE EQUAL to the power of a million atomic bombs!
Explosive rivers of hot, liquified rock flowing downhill at speeds of up to 100 mph! Water, steam and fast-moving clouds of incandescent gases, pumice and ash!
Add to this the present and future James Bond plus the Terminator's sidekick and Universal Pictures is betting $100 million that it will be enough.
With ``Dante's Peak,'' now commonly known as ``the first of this year's volcano movies,'' opening Friday, the disaster film is back.
We lived through Ava Gardner and half of Los Angeles going down the drain in ``Earthquake,'' Jennifer Jones plunging to her death in ``The Towering Inferno'' and Shelley Winters breathing her last gasp underwater in ``The Poseidon Adventure.'' Hasn't the human race suffered enough?
The disaster film, with varied stars and pseudo-stars stuck in a common threat, seemingly breathed its last in the late '70s. It was given a suitable burial with a number of ``Airplane'' spoofs. If the nails were put in the coffin, they weren't hammered very securely.
``Volcano,'' 20th Century Fox's competitive eruption, will come out in early summer. ``The Flood'' is waiting to be unleashed. It's a threatening year for moviegoers.
Pierce Brosnan, as a ``volcanologist'' whose warnings are unheeded, and Linda Hamilton, as the town's mayor, are required to look up and react with horror as ``Dante's Peak'' blows its top.
There is something ominous, though, about the fact that the last huge disaster-flick flop, the one that effectively ended the genre's heyday, was a volcano film. It was ``When Time Ran Out,'' a prophetic title for this type movie in 1980.
It starred no less than Paul Newman, William Holden, Jacqueline Bisset, Ernest Borgnine and Red Buttons, set amidst a volcanic eruption on a Polynesian island. The disaster was mainly at the box office, not on screen. It signaled the end of Round One of the disaster flicks. Round Two is coming.
Roger Donaldson, the Australian import who directed ``Dante's Peak,'' claims that disaster flicks actually never went away.
``I don't see this as a comeback for these films,'' he said. ``Basic human conflict has always been a part of movies.''
But last year's ``Twister'' movie was a rollercoaster ride that was more fun than serious disaster, complete with a flying cow. ``Dante's Peak,'' Donaldson admits, is to be taken seriously.
The opening night screening, though, brought a surprise when the audience applauded the death of one of the characters and cheered when the film's resident doggie, Lucky, was saved.
``Audience reaction can never be predicted,'' Donaldson said. ``I'm just pleased that they were involved.''
Brosnan, looking suave and carefully groomed on the morning after the film's premiere, says that it marks a point in his career that ``at last, I can relax, to a certain degree. Of course, I'm of the theory that anything, and everything, can be taken away at any moment. But, for years, I was the guy that `Should have been, could have been, almost was.' Now, it seems that I am - for the moment.''
He, of course, is James Bond, for at least three more 007 movies. His position is cemented by the fact that ``Goldeneye,'' his 007 debut, was the highest grossing Bond film in history. He's in rehearsal for the next Bond film, which doesn't have a title yet.
``We're just calling it `Bond 18' at the moment,'' he said, ``because it's the 18th in the series. I can't tell you anything about the plot, or where Bond will be traveling, but I've read the script and I see lots of bruises in it - for me.''
He's intent, though, upon having an acting presence beyond 007. With this in mind, he took roles last year in ``The Mirror Has Two Faces,'' ``Mars Attacks!'' and ``Dante's Peak.''
He realizes, though, that the special effects are the real star of ``Dante's Peak.''
``The volcano gives a performance. Then we, Linda and I, give a performance. I'm aware that the volcano is louder.''
He took his new baby, Dylan Thomas Brosnan, just weeks old, to the screening of ``Dante's Peak,'' along with the new mother, his girlfriend, Kelly.
``The baby slept all the way through it,'' he laughed, ``but I don't think that's a critical statement.''
Linda Hamilton was an obvious choice for the action film. After ``The Terminator,'' and its mega-hit sequel, she is every producer's first choice for action-woman time.
``I'm living down a legend I created,'' Hamilton said. Her arms didn't have those biceps she sported back when she was working in ``The Terminator'' but, still, in two falls out of three, you might be smart to bet on her rather than Brosnan.
``I enjoy the physicality of my work,'' she said, ``but I'd like to be a romantic leading lady, not just the action lady. I'd like to do a film in which there are words - lots of words.''
Hamilton, who says her marriage to ``Terminator 2'' director James Cameron is imminent, has a son, age 7, and a daughter, 4.
As for a sequel to ``T-2,'' she says ``when and if Jim comes up with a good idea, it'll be forthcoming, but both Arnold (Schwarzenegger) and I are getting older. The script would have to be appropriate.''
She, more than anyone else in the cast, was directly involved in what turned out to be a multimillion dollar race with Fox's ``Volcano.''
``I was offered both films,'' she said. ``I'm not knocking anyone else's project, but I'm glad I'm in `Dante's Peak.' ''
Donaldson admits that everyone concerned was panicked when they realized that two huge-budget volcano flicks were coming out at about the same time.
``We were in production first,'' he said. ``This project has been in the making for three years. But we were determined we'd be out first. That meant a rush in the post-production effects. It also added several million dollars to the overall cost.''
``Volcano,'' set in Los Angeles, has been moved back, but is boasting an even-bigger budget.
Gale Anne Hurd, ``Dante's Peak'' co-producer, missed the premiere and was spared the audience's raucous reactions because she is in Wilmington, N.C., preparing initial interior shots for ``Virus.'' That production moves to Norfolk in mid-March, where the action will be shot on a boat in the Chesapeake Bay.
``Virus'' will star Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Sutherland and William Baldwin. The $100 million price tag for ``Dante's Peak'' leads speculators to reason that the $40 million guess on the cost for ``Virus'' may, indeed, be conservative.
Donaldson said that a Gale Anne Hurd film leaves a lot of money in the town where it is filmed. ``We filmed in Wallace, Idaho, a small mining town. The townspeople had to put up with a lot of noise from us, but they were quite willing to do it. We were a major influence upon the economy.''
The most dangerous shot in the movie, he said, was a helicopter scene, when townspeople are attempting to escape amid a downpour of volcanic ash.
``We were afraid the ash would somehow get inside the engine,'' the director said. ``Every safety precaution was taken.''
But the ash wasn't really ash, of course.
``We had to find something that was safe to breath, but looked like vocanic ash,'' he reasoned.
They tried sawdust. They tried gypsum, flour and wheat flour.
None of it worked.
The solution? The volcanic ash you see in the movie is actually ground-up newspaper. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
Rescue Mission: Pierce Brosnan, as a "volcanologist" whose warning
goes unheeded, and Linda Hamilton, as the town mayor, must save her
two children, played by Jeremy Foley and Jamie Renee Smith, from an
erupting volcano in "Dante's Peak," opening in area theaters Friday.
On the Run: Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton in an action sequence
from "Dante's peak."
Photo
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) and Rachel Wando (Linda Hamilton)
watch as the long-dormant volcano begins to erupt.