'Greenland' Trailer Promises Plenty of Meteoric Action This Summer

The biggest selling point for 'Greenland', that it's trailer completely ignores, is reuniting the team behind last year's 'Angel Has Fallen'

'Greenland' (CREDIT: STX Entertainment)

by Jack Linsdell

This week, STX Entertainment kickstarted the marketing campaign for their latest theatrical release, Greenland, with a splashy and exciting trailer. The "Gerard Butler vs Comet" disaster flick will try to navigate the unusual and unprecedented post-coronavirus theatrical marketplace by being one of the first "big" movies to hit theatres since mid March. As of now (and I say that because release dates are changing every day at the moment), the Gerard Butler vehicle will hit theatres on August 14 in USA and August 21 in the UK. That positions it alongside (at the moment) Christopher Nolan's Tenet in being the only game in town for big-budget action thrills in what amounts to an unusually short summer movie season. Whether that impacts its commercial performance is yet to be seen, although it could swing either way. On the one hand, with the virus still spreading, and the lack of a vaccine, not to mention the financial hardships endured by families from the lockdown, audiences may stay clear (whether through choice or circumstance) of theatres all together. Or, having spent months trapped inside with no social activity permitted, audiences may fancy a break from the four walls. In that case, Greenland could do better box office. 

But, regardless of performance, STX Entertainment is certainly selling Greenland on the popularity of its leading man (contrary to popular belief, Butler has been a B movie action star since 2013 turning original flicks like Olympus Has Fallen, Den of Thieves and Geostorm into variations of "half decent box office" hits) and the nature of a big budget disaster flick being a rare thing in the modern theatrical landscape. But, what the trailer doesn't sell is that it's the second collaboration between Butler and stuntman-turned-filmmaker Ric Roman Waugh.

Hollywood occasionally finds winning collaborations between star and director (think "Tom Hanks in a Steven Spielberg movie" or "Robert De Niro stars in a Martin Scorsese picture") which becomes a popular sell for a film all on it's own. From these partnerships comes some of the best and most pioneering filmmaking the industry has ever seen. And, well, it's been the same for the action genre too. 

Back in 2004, Paul Greengrass was given the keys to a big-budget Hollywood action franchise when he helmed The Bourne Supremacy, starring Matt Damon. Upon it's release, the sequel to Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity, was critically acclaimed and redefined the whole action genre with its frenetic "on the run" aesthetic, forming a close partnership between Damon and Greengrass. The two would collaborate three more times with two more Bourne flicks (2007's The Bourne Ultimatum and 2016's Jason Bourne) and a "Bourne-stylised depiction of the hunt for WMDs in Iraq" action-thriller Green Zone in 2010. 

In 2011, Christopher McQuarrie pulled Tom Cruise's action career out of the dust when he rewrote Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and "saved" that movie from production hell. Since then, McQuarrie has been brought onboard every Cruise vehicle as a writer or producer, becoming his right hand man and firm friend. But, when McQuarrie went into the director's chair on a Cruise action flick, helming Jack Reacher and the last two Mission movies (Rogue Nation and Fallout), that's when the collaboration went to a new level. They not only redefined the nature of stunt work by grounding it in character and emotion, but their "do it right or don't do it at all" approach made popcorn action movies pieces of high art. 

And, Waugh and Butler have become the latest "action star and director" partnership to emerge. Waugh brought a new and gritty approach to Butler's Has Fallen series when he co-wrote and directed the third installment Angel Has Fallen last year. That film not only became hugely successful (with excellent box office and big post-theatrical sales figures) but was critically raved about too. Greenland marks their second collaboration, with the recently announced political thriller Kandahar set to be number three. The reason why this pioneering and successful partnership is a surprising omission for the marketing (at least for me) is that when Waugh and Butler work together on an action flick, magic happens. Maybe its too early in their partnership for this to be a successful sell, although considering it's the same studio and producers, I was expecting "from the director of Angel Has Fallen" title in the trailer. 

The film itself therefore promises to be of a certain quality because of Waugh's involvement. Angel Has Fallen was one of 2019's best and most surprising successes, so it stands to reason that this flick will deliver all the best action thrills and tension but through a grounded and gritty format. That's even more important here due to the fantastical premise of a comet invasion (although there's some truth in it) that's about to destroy the earth. Penned by Chris Sparling and starring Deadpool's Morena Baccarin and Scott Glenn, Greenland looks like one hell of an entertaining ride. The trailer promises plenty of "Butler versus Comet" action sequences, and actually reminded me of J Blakeson's superb The 5th Wave in terms of the whole "protagonist has to save their family as the world comes to an end" thing. It also looks to have plenty of heart and emotion with Butler and Baccarin forced to protect their family (including their children) from all the chaos around them, which if done as well as Butler's A Family Man could make me cry too. 

Either way, Greenland looks like a real summer treat and promises us the start of yet another pioneering action partnership between leading man and director. Whether people see it in theatres is a different matter entirely.