{"id":1610217,"date":"2022-08-17T08:19:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T12:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1610217"},"modified":"2022-08-17T08:19:41","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T12:19:41","slug":"director-wolfgang-petersen-dies-at-81-hollywood-star-rose-after-das-boot-to-include-blockbusters-air-force-one-in-the-line-of-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/director-wolfgang-petersen-dies-at-81-hollywood-star-rose-after-das-boot-to-include-blockbusters-air-force-one-in-the-line-of-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Director Wolfgang Petersen Dies At 81; Hollywood Star Rose After \u201cDas Boot\u201d To Include Blockbusters \u201cAir Force One\u201d &#038; \u201cIn The Line Of Fire\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">48<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdirector-wolfgang-petersen-dies-at-81-hollywood-star-rose-after-das-boot-to-include-blockbusters-air-force-one-in-the-line-of-fire%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1610217&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/wolfgang-petersen\/\" id=\"auto-tag_wolfgang-petersen\" data-tag=\"wolfgang-petersen\">Wolfgang Petersen<\/a>, who rode his acclaimed German-language film \u201cDas Boot\u201d into a career directing Hollywood blockbusters such as \u201cIn the Line of Fire,\u201d \u201cAir Force One,\u201d \u201cThe Perfect Storm\u201d and \u201cTroy,\u201d has died. He was 81.<\/p>\n<p>The news was confirmed by his production company.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDas Boot\u201d (1981) was the harrowing story of life aboard a German U-boat during World War II; the genius of the film\u00a0was that Petersen\u00a0accomplished the unlikely feat of making\u00a0audiences feel for the ordinary men serving on the submarine, who were all at least nominally in service to the Nazi cause \u2014 even the captain, played by Jurgen Prochnow, who himself parlayed the role in the film into a career as a character actor in Hollywood. Offering suspense and tragedy,\u00a0\u201cDas Boot\u201d was nominated for six Oscars \u2014 an enormous number for a foreign film \u2014 including two for Petersen, for director and adapted screenplay. On the IMDb\u2019s list of 250 top-rated films, \u201cDas Boot\u201d is No. 71. (A director\u2019s cut running 293 minutes was \u00a0presented as a TV miniseries in Germany in 1985 and on DVD in the U.S. and elsewhere.)<\/p>\n<p>Petersen\u2019s first film in Hollywood was the\u00a01984 fantasy adventure \u201cThe NeverEnding Story,\u201d which he directed and co-scripted. The story centered on a boy in our reality and the kingdom of Fantasia, which exists in a storybook. Roger Ebert wrote: \u201cThe only thing standing between Fantasia and Nothingness is the faith of a small boy named Bastian (Barret Oliver). He discovers the kingdom in a magical bookstore, and as he begins to read the adventure between the covers, it becomes so real that the people in the story know about Bastian.\u00a0The idea of the story within a story is one of the nice touches in \u2018The NeverEnding Story.\u2019 Another one is the idea of a child\u2019s faith being able to change the course of fate.\u201d <em>Variety<\/em> called it \u201ca\u00a0marvelously realized flight of pure fantasy,\u201d and the film has been dearly loved by moviegoers and home video watchers since its release.<\/p>\n<p>However successful Petersen was in appealing to children, he quickly graduated to films geared toward adults. His next effort was \u201cEnemy Mine,\u201d about an astronaut (Dennis Quaid) who crash-lands on an alien planet and teams with a lizard-like alien (Louis Gossett Jr.) from the species he was battling in order to survive the harsh environment. This film was neither\u00a0well received by critics nor made any money, and indeed, Petersen did not make another film for six years.<\/p>\n<p>He returned in 1991 with the mystery thriller \u201cShattered,\u201d starring Tom Berenger, Bob Hoskins and Greta Scacchi. The film, centering on Berenger\u2019s wealthy Dan Merrick, who has amnesia after an accident that seems increasingly suspicious, offered many twists and turns, but most critics found the screenplay weak. The film, like \u201cEnemy Mine,\u201d made little money.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/gallery\/wolfgang-petersen-best-films-das-boot\/\">Wolfgang Petersen\u2019s Best Films<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Petersen made an extraordinary creative leap with the critically acclaimed Clint Eastwood film \u201cIn the Line of Fire\u201d (1993). The suspenseful, well-written film starred Eastwood as a\u00a0Secret Service agent scarred by the experience of not having been able to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy three decades earlier; John Malkovich played an effective villain out to kill the current president. Using technology that was new and highly innovative at the time, the effects team digitally inserted images of Eastwood from 1960s films into footage of JFK \u2014 but that was just the cherry on top of a well-directed film. <em>Variety<\/em> said: \u201cDirector Wolfgang Petersen sends the story efficiently down its straight and narrow track, deftly engineering the battle of wills between two desperately committed men.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s my greatest experience after \u2018Das Boot,\u2019 \u201d Petersen told <em>Variety<\/em> ahead of the movie\u2019s release. \u201cWorking with Clint was a great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the Line of Fire\u201d was Petersen\u2019s first film to score significant box office \u2014 $177 million worldwide in 1993. With both critical acclaim \u2014 the film sports a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes \u2014 and impressive B.O., Petersen had finally arrived in Hollywood.<\/p>\n<p>The time was ripe for a movie about a killer virus, after two books on the subject hit the bestseller list, but in making\u00a01995\u2019s \u201cOutbreak,\u201d Petersen had to confront the fact that a killer virus does not have the visual appeal of a vampire or a great white shark. Thus the film, starring\u00a0Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo and Morgan Freeman, introduced spatting ex-spouses, hints of a conspiracy and melodramatic cliches. It was not critically esteemed, but somehow the movie\u00a0made $190 million worldwide, so Warner Bros. had no cause for complaint.<\/p>\n<p>In \u201cAir Force One\u201d (1997), it was not the Secret Service agents protecting the president who kicked ass but the president himself. The casting was key: Harrison Ford was still young enough to seem capable of physically\u00a0taking control amid a terrorist plot aboard the presidential plane while old enough to sport the gravitas of a U.S. president.\u00a0Rolling Stone said: \u201d \u2018Air Force One\u2019 doesn\u2019t insult the audience. It is crafted by a filmmaker who takes pride in the thrills and sly fun he packs into every frame.\u201d The movie soared at the box office, taking $315 million worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>Next was 2000\u2019s \u201cThe Perfect Storm,\u201d an adaptation of the book by Sebastian Junger about the confluence of meteorological events that created a positively enormous gale off the Northeast coast and the crew of a fishing vessel, played by George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, among others, that was stuck in the middle of the tempest. Visual effects provided the monumental wave that swamps the boat, but the film would have been exciting and suspenseful in any event. Critics were unimpressed, but audiences liked it to the tune of $329 million worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>Petersen switched gears for his next project, \u201cTroy,\u201d based on Homer\u2019s Iliad, and\u00a0filled with epic-scale action \u2014 as well as\u00a0movie\u00a0stars including Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom. Critics were mostly unimpressed; <em>Variety<\/em> said: \u201cDespite a sensationally attractive cast and an array of well-staged combat scenes presented on a vast scale, Wolfgang Petersen\u2019s highly telescoped rendition of the Trojan War lurches ahead in fits and starts for much of its hefty running time, to OK effect.\u201d The film had an interesting critical supporter in the form of the New Yorker\u2019s David Denby, who wrote, \u201cHarsh, serious, and both exhilarating and tragic, the right tonal combination for Homer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But in general, Petersen was helping to pioneer the critic-proof movie \u2014 \u201cTroy\u2019s\u201d worldwide gross was $497 million, most of it from overseas. (Adjusted for inflation, \u201cAir Force One\u201d was the director\u2019s most successful film.)<\/p>\n<p>Petersen was riding high, but his next movie sank him. \u201cPoseidon\u201d (2006), a leaden remake of \u201cThe Poseidon Adventure\u201d that carried a production budget of $160 million and generated worldwide box office of $182 million, resulting in a huge loss for Time Warner once promotional costs were figured in, was Petersen\u2019s last Hollywood film.<\/p>\n<p>The director seemed to retire at that point, but a decade later he made a film in Germany, \u201cVier gegen die Bank\u201d (Four Against the Bank), a remake of his own 1976 German TV movie of the same name that was based on 1972 novel \u201cThe Nixon Recession Caper\u201d by Ralph Maloney.\u00a0The original told the story of \u201cfour members of an exclusive country club who decide to rob a bank to solve their money problems.\u201d The new film starred Til Schweiger.<\/p>\n<p>Petersen was born in Emden, Germany. He\u00a0attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg from 1953-60. In the 1960s he directed plays at Hamburg\u2019s Ernst Deutsch Theater. After\u00a0studying theater in Berlin and Hamburg, he\u00a0attended Berlin\u2019s\u00a0Film and Television Academy (1966-70).<\/p>\n<p>The director started out in Germany by making TV movies, earning his first such credit in 1965 and making TV movies steadily from 1971 to 1978.\u00a0While\u00a0working on the popular German TV series \u201cTatort\u201d (Crime Scene), he first met and worked with actor Jurgen Prochnow \u2014 who would appear in several of his films, including as the U-boat captain in \u201cDas Boot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Petersen\u2019s\u00a0first feature film was the 1974\u00a0psychological thriller \u201cOne or the Other of Us,\u201d\u00a0starring Prochnow. Next was\u00a01977\u2019s black-and-white film \u201cDie Konsequenz,\u201d an adaptation of Alexander Ziegler\u2019s autobiographical novel about\u00a0homosexual love. The film was considered so radical at the\u00a0time that when it first aired on German television, the Bavarian network refused to\u00a0broadcast it.<\/p>\n<p>Petersen was married to German actress\u00a0Ursula Sieg until their divorce in 1978.<\/p>\n<p>He is survived by second wife\u00a0Maria-Antoinette Borgel, a German script supervisor and assistant director whom he married in 1978, and a son by Sieg, writer-director Daniel\u00a0Petersen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wolfgang Petersen, who rode his acclaimed German-language film \u201cDas Boot\u201d into a career directing Hollywood blockbusters such as \u201cIn the Line of Fire,\u201d \u201cAir Force One,\u201d \u201cThe Perfect Storm\u201d and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1611012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1610217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1610217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1611012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1610217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1610217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1610217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}