The successful director Wolfgang Petersen died at the age of 81. Revealed by the German film “Das Boot – The Boat,” the filmmaker then made a career in the United States, signing in particular “In the line of fire”, “Air Force One,” and “Troy”
German director Wolfgang Petersen died at 81 in his home in Los Angeles on August 12, 2022. His death was announced this Tuesday, August 16. The filmmaker was taken by pancreatic cancer. In 1981, after having shot several projects for television as well as feature films like The Consequence, he signed one of the biggest successes of German cinema with Das Boot – The Boat. The film was nominated in six categories at the Oscars.
In 1984, Wolfgang Petersen directed The Never-ending Story, the eponymous adaptation of Michael Ende’s novel, which was to be followed by a second film. He then turns many projects in Hollywood. He orchestrated the confrontation between Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich in the Line of Fire before finding himself at the helm of the disaster film Alert! in which Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo and Morgan Freeman fight against the highly rapid spread of a deadly virus.
The director then imposes Harrison Ford as the President of the United States, who has to face terrorists led by Gary Oldman aboard his plane in Air Force One. He then sends the hapless George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg into the middle of a massive hurricane in The Tempest before turning Brad Pitt into a demigod in the peplum Troy.
The superb American career of Wolfgang Petersen stops suddenly after the failure of Poseidon, a remake of The Poseidon Adventure. Ten years passed before the director makes his last film in his native country, the comedy German-style robbery with Til Schweiger and Alexandra Maria Lara. In an interview with Deutsche Welle, the director reflects on the abrupt end of his Hollywood experience and says with some bitterness
“What I probably shouldn’t have done was to film Poseidon. I was on a roll at that point. In the line of fire, Alert, Air Force One, In the Storm, Troy – I did all those movies in a row, and each one was more successful than the last. Five in a row. So they said, ‘Wolfgang can do anything. Just give him the money. Everything will be fine. But it wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it, because it doesn’t work like that. At some point, you fail.”
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