Ric Roman Waugh Interview: Greenland

In Greenland, out through VOD on December 18, a comet makes its way to Earth and threatens billions of lives. The disaster film feels prescient in the middle of a pandemic, in a potentially upsetting way, but thankfully Gerard Butler is there to help save the day.

Director Ric Roman Waugh spoke to Screen Rant about the Garrity family at the center of the story, his research into meteorites, and the aspects of the movie that most spoke to him.

Due to the climate change over the past few years, we’ve had apocalyptic floods, hurricanes, fires in the sky here in Southern California. How much does all that go into this story?

Ric Roman Waugh: I don’t think it’s as specific as that. This was definitely never going to be a climate change movie. It was going to be, really, a movie about what people are capable of in life and death. And if you look at the movies that I’ve done, even back to Shock Collar and Felon, they’re all about that.

But what I loved about when I read Greenland, is I realized it was a movie about two monsters. It was not only the monster that was going to hit the Earth – and you get this big, visceral spectacle of that in the movie theater – but it was also the monster that we are as a humanity. Where we turn on each other, and are we capable of heinous things for our own self-survival? Or will we do the right thing by others and help? For me, it was Shock Collar without prison. It was how you don’t need prison to make people – which we’re seeing today, obviously – understand if we’re going to come together turn on each other.

And for me, that was an amazing experience, to do a movie that was from the inside out with the action so that you felt like you were in the Garritys’ point of view and participating in the events with them, versus watching it like voyeurs from the outside in.

Speaking of the Garritys, Morena is brilliant in this film, and so it Gerard. You’ve worked with Gerard before on Angel Has Fallen. What did both actors bring to the movie that wasn’t necessarily on the page?

Ric Roman Waugh: You want to know if you have actors that are going to play it in that kind of honesty. The things that are Gerry’s character is trying to find redemption from, with their marriage – not to give things away – and her own ownership of her world and her own participation in the things that were going on in their marriage.

This love story that takes place, it was one of my favorite parts of the original material. It reminded me so much of the division in our world today, where we have just stopped seeing each other. If somebody is different from us, or has a different point of view, they’re wrong and we’re right. Instead of understanding that we can always find compromises and ways to meld. Their marriage represented that to me, two people that are so far apart that they can barely live together. And then in the end, finding out what all mattered in the first place, which is tjhat we just want to love somebody and to be loved back and not be alone in this world. And I love the message of that.

So, you get this great, intimate love story in the middle of it. But you get to give this big action ride, this visual thing – I’ve been looking to do a big disaster, horror type of a movie. But I’ve always wanted something like a Children of Men type of thing or A Quiet Place. Something that was from the inside out, not from the outside. We’ve all seen the spectacle, but I wanted an emotional gripping ride within it.

In your research about meteorites, what alarmed you the most?

Ric Roman Waugh: The biggest one was the comets, as they move at accelerated speed, and they can come out of nowhere. And the funny thing is, as we were making the movie, I got bombarded with emails of how many near misses come by Earth all at a given time. And literally this month, another one was just going by.

What’s interesting is that we love the idea, which is based on science, that a lot of times comets will end up hitting other debris, and they break up into a belt of fragments. So, you got something that wasn’t just the singular monster that you’re waiting for the entire movie to hit. You get to have an engine that’s like a monster in A Quiet Place that can come at any given moment and take you out. Then it gives you a much bigger visceral ride all the way through, to kind of change it up.

But it was the type of thing which we’re seeing [today,] with the fires. Today, we’re looking at a major hurricane, Sally, that’s gonna wreck the Gulf. And you realize just how small, how miniscule we are on this planet as people, and how fragile we are.

I thought this film was great, and now I’m extremely nervous about comets.

Ric Waugh: We’re gonna be here longer than the cockroaches. Don’t worry, we’re gonna make it.

I’m holding you to that exclusive. Thank you.