Underwater (film)

This article is about the 2020 science fiction film. For the 1955 adventure film starring Jane Russell, see Underwater!

Underwater
File:Underwater poster.jpeg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	William Eubank
Produced by	Peter Chernin Tonia Davis Jenno Topping
Screenplay by	Brian Duffield Adam Cozad
Story by	Brian Duffield
Starring	Kristen Stewart Vincent Cassel Jessica Henwick John Gallagher Jr. Mamoudou Athie T.J. Miller
Music by	Marco Beltrami Brandon Roberts
Cinematography	Bojan Bazelli
Edited by	Todd E. Miller Brian Berdan William Hoy
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	January 10, 2020 (2020-01-10)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50–80 million
Box office	$40.9 million

Underwater is a 2020 American science fiction action horror film directed by William Eubank. The film stars Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Mamoudou Athie, and T.J. Miller.

Underwater follows a group of workers on a drilling facility at the bottom of the ocean who encounter hostile creatures after an earthquake destroys the facility. The film is loosely based on the Cthulhu Mythos, as it features Cthulhu and the Deep Ones as the antagonists.

The film was released in the United States on January 10, 2020, by 20th Century Fox. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $41 million worldwide against a production budget of $50–80 million. Notably, it was the final film released under the 20th Century Fox brand, as new owner The Walt Disney Company changed the company's name to 20th Century Studios just a week after its release.

Plot

Kepler 822, a research and drilling facility operated by Tian Industries at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, is struck by a strong earthquake. As part of the facility is destroyed by the quake, mechanical engineer Norah Price and her colleagues, Rodrigo Nagenda and Paul Abel, crawl through the wreckage to the escape pod bay. When they arrive, they discover all the escape pods were deployed by Captain Lucien, who stayed behind "because that's what captains do." Together, they reach a control base and find biologist Emily Haversham and engineer Liam Smith, who confirm that there is no contact with the surface. Lucien suggests using pressurized suits to walk one mile across the ocean floor to the Roebuck 641 station and use their escape pods. Norah is nervous, because they might die from the pressure or run out of oxygen. Lucien asks her to consider that they might live. Emily panics, because she has never been outside the station and doesn't even have a pressure suit. While assembling a pressure suit for Emily, Rodrigo finds a helmet with a hairline crack. There are no more helmets, so he makes a quick decision. They help Emily into her suit. As they descend in the cargo elevator, Rodrigo’s defective helmet implodes under the increasing water pressure. Rodrigo sacrificed himself, so Emily can live.

They see a distress beacon from one of the failed escape pods. When Smith and Paul prepare to rescue any survivors, Emily is disturbed that Smith, her boyfriend, is leaving her to go outside. Paul comforts her by giving her his plushie bunny, Little Paul, saying, "Take this bunny. I bequeath it to you. If he doesn't make it, I'll haunt you." Shocked, but mollified, Emily accepts the bunny. When Smith and Paul arrive at the damaged escape pod, they find a body in the rubble. A creature emerges from the corpse's back and attacks. Smith kills the creature and takes it inside. Emily examines the creature and realizes that it belongs to a previously undiscovered species. She theorizes that the rig drilled into a thermal pocket where these creatures live. This is confirmed by a previously-recorded 10 degree rise in the outside water temperature.

The five descend to the sea floor, but as they are walking, Kepler Station explodes, showering them in debris. Smith is hit, but Norah and Lucien save him. They arrive at the Midway Station access tunnel, where they charge their oxygen and clean their suits. However, Smith's oxygen scrubber was badly damaged by falling debris. On their way through the access tunnel, Paul is attacked by an unknown creature, dragged underwater, and killed. At Midway, Norah holds Paul's bunny and broods over Paul's death for a few minutes, until she is called to fix Smith's oxygen scrubber. She discovers that Smith's damaged oxygen pod will cause him to suffocate from the toxic fumes. Unwilling to leave another crew member behind, Norah, Lucien, and Emily agree to help Smith walk. The four set off across the ocean floor, but a humanoid creature appears and drags Smith into a cave. Lucien pulls Smith out, but is himself dragged into the cave; and then, pulled down a deep shaft with ever-increasing pressure. Risking implosion, Norah tries to rescue Lucien, but he lets go and sacrifices himself, so she can live.

Alone, Norah arrives at the abandoned Shepard Station. She rummages through Lucien's locker and finds a pentagram drawn on an old blueprint of the initial drilling site. Norah changes into an undamaged suit and continues toward Roebuck Station. Norah catches up with Emily and Smith, and helps drag the injured Smith along the sea floor. At Roebuck, they encounter a nest of the humanoid creatures suspended from the ceiling and attempt to sneak by. The sound of Emily's oxygen alarm awakens the creatures. Norah is partially-swallowed by a creature, but frees herself by firing her flare gun while inside its body. Freeing herself from the copse, she fires a second flare into the distance and sees the creatures are spawn of an ancient titanic creature, Cthulhu.

Inside the station, they reach the escape pod bay, but Norah discovers that only two of the pods are functional. Norah and Emily get the ailing Smith into a pod, but he insists the ladies go first, so he weakly fights them to take the last pod. Norah convinces Smith to get in the pod by giving him the bunny, saying, "Here, take this. Give it to his parents. Tell them he was my favorite pain in the ass." Smith agrees and they activate his pod. Emily notices the third pod is flashing red and is defective. She offers to stay with Norah and help her fix it. Norah forcefully persuades Emily to take the second pod and activates it. Meanwhile, Cthulhu has been attacking the Roebuck, while the smaller creatures pursue the two escape pods. Instead of repairing the third pod, Norah accepts her fate. She uses the remaining time to calculate a safe distance for Smith's and Emily's pods. As soon as the pods are out of the blast zone, she initiates an overload of the Roebuck's nuclear core, resulting in a massive explosion that kills her, Cthulhu, and the creatures. The escape pods safely reach the surface. Tian Industries refuses to cooperate with investigators regarding the events. Smith and Emily are sequestered from the press. Paul's plushie bunny is confiscated and taken into evidence. And Tian prepares to expand its drilling efforts.

In the alternate ending, after overloading the core, Norah makes her way to the damaged escape pod and rewires it, escaping just before the Roebuck explodes.

Cast

• Kristen Stewart as Norah Price- the mechanical engineer of the Kepler 822
• Vincent Cassel as Captain Lucien- the Captain of Kepler 822,
• Jessica Henwick as Emily Haversham- the biologist of Kepler 822
• John Gallagher Jr. as Liam Smith- the engineer of Kepler 822
• Mamoudou Athie as Rodrigo Nagenda- a colleague of Norah, and the first survivor Norah finds
• T.J. Miller as Paul Abel- a colleague of Norahs, who survived the initial cave in

Production

On February 22, 2017, it was announced that Kristen Stewart would star in Underwater, a film to be directed by William Eubank from a screenplay by Brian Duffield and Adam Cozad. It was revealed that principal production would commence the next month. On March 7, 2017, T.J. Miller and Jessica Henwick joined the cast, and principal production was set to commence later that month in New Orleans.

On April 5, 2017, during principal production, Vincent Cassel and Mamoudou Athie joined the cast, and the next day, John Gallagher Jr. was also added. In May 2017, following the end of filming for the film, it was revealed that Gunner Wright was also part of the cast. After shooting the film, the director decided to design the alpha creature based on H. P. Lovecraft's mythos, as it features Cthulhu as the monster.

Marco Beltrami & Brandon Roberts composed the film score. Fox Music & Hollywood Records released the soundtrack.

Release

Underwater was released in the United States on January 10, 2020 and in UK cinemas on February 7, 2020.

The film was the last 20th Century film to be released under the 20th Century Fox name, before its new owner, The Walt Disney Company, changed the name of the studio to 20th Century Studios on January 17, 2020.

Reception

Box office

Underwater grossed $17.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $23.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $40.9 million.

In the United States and Canada, Underwater was released alongside Like a Boss and the expansions of Just Mercy and 1917, and was projected to gross around $8 million in its opening weekend. The film made $2.7 million on its first day, including $500,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $7 million, finishing seventh at the box office. The film fell 48% in its second weekend to $3.6 million (and $4.8 million over the four-day Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday), finishing eleventh.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "Underwater's strong cast and stylish direction aren't enough to distract from the strong sense of déjà vu provoked by this claustrophobic thriller's derivative story." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, and PostTrak reported it received an average 2 out of 5 stars, with 35% of people saying they would definitely recommend it.

John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "This is a creature feature, whose gory jump-scares and icktastic critter design are the reason you're here. An ensemble led by Kristen Stewart brings credible camaraderie to the scenario without quite matching the vivid chemistry of Alien and its best descendants; with such a tightly packed survival tale ahead of them, though, few viewers will be calling out for more character development."

Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote: "Underwater is a stupefying entertainment in which every claustrophobic space and apocalyptic crash of water registers as a slick visual trigger, yet it's all built on top of a dramatic void. It's boredom in Sensurround."

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s)	Result	Ref.
Visual Effects Society Awards	April 6, 2021	Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal Feature	Sreejith Venugopalan, Ruslan Borysov, Susil Sabat, Andreas Andersson	Nominated

External links

• Official Site on Fox Movies
• Underwater at IMDb
• Underwater VFX 2020 (Spanish)