Greenland (film)

Greenland is a 2020 American apocalyptic disaster film directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Chris Sparling. The film stars Gerard Butler (who also produced), Morena Baccarin, Roger Dale Floyd, Scott Glenn, David Denman, and Hope Davis, and follows a family who must fight for survival as a planet-destroying comet races to Earth.

Originally scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States, Greenland was delayed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was released domestically by STXfilms, through video on demand on December 18, 2020, and then to streaming on HBO Max and Amazon Prime. It was still released theatrically in other territories, beginning with Belgium on July 29, 2020. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $52.3 million worldwide with a production budget of $35 million. A sequel, Greenland: Migration, is in development, with Waugh, Butler, Baccarin and Floyd all returning.

Plot
A near-earth passing of a recently discovered interstellar comet named "Clarke" is expected to occur. Structural engineer John Garrity lives in Atlanta, Georgia USA with his estranged wife, Allison, and their diabetic son, Nathan. John plans to watch the televised expected impact of a fragment of the comet in the Altantic Ocean near Bermuda along with his family and neighbors. John receives an automated Department of Homeland Security (DHS) message saying that he and his family have been selected for emergency sheltering just after a comet fragment is seen entering the atmosphere on live television.

Instead of landing in the ocean, the fragment strikes Tampa, Florida vaporizing the city and much of the state; it is revealed that Clarke is actually on a direct collision course with Earth. The entire planet will be bombarded with hundreds of fragments over the next two days, culminating in a strike by a fragment large enough to cause an extinction-level event. John receives a call with instructions to head to Robins Air Force Base with his family for an evacuation flight; he is the only resident of the neighborhood to get this call. John, Allison, and Nathan quickly pack up and leave for the base, taking no one else with them as none but them would be allowed to board.

At Robins Air Force Base, Nathan's insulin is left behind in the car. As John goes to retrieve it, Allison is escorted off the base after Nathan's medical condition is discovered, disqualifying him. John returns and boards a plane but quickly disembarks on realizing Allison and Nathan were left behind.

As John exits the base, a panicked mob breaks in, destroying several evacuation planes when gunfire ignites jet fuel. Returning to the car, John finds a note from Allison saying she and Nathan are going to her father's home in Lexington, Kentucky. After getting medical supplies from a looted store, Allison and Nathan get a ride from Ralph and Judy Vento, only for Ralph to throw Allison out of the car, take her wristband and kidnap Nathan to use him and the wristbands to board a flight.

John hitches a ride on a truck where a young man named Colin says it is headed to Osgoode, Ontario Canada where private planes are flying to Greenland, the apparent evacuation site. However, another man attempts to take John's wristband, causing the truck to crash, killing Colin, and John is forced to kill the other man in self-defense. At another airport, the Ventos attempt to pose as Nathan's parents, but are arrested when the military discovers he is not their child. Allison and Nathan are reunited shortly after at a nearby Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) camp. The following morning, John learns from televised news reports that millions of people have died in fragment strikes worldwide and that the largest fragment will hit in approximately 24 hours. Stealing a car, John reaches his elderly father-in-law Dale's house, and Nathan and Allison arrive shortly after. The family learn about a complex of underground bunkers near Pituffik Space Base in Greenland where the evacuees are being sent. They have just enough time to reach Osgoode. John and Allison try to persuade Dale to go with them but he refuses, content to meet the end of his days in his home when the largest fragment strikes. He gives the family his truck and bids them farewell. 

Reaching Upstate New York, the family barely escapes a deadly rain of molten debris by taking refuge below an underpass, then continue on to Canada. While making steady progress, the family learns over the radio that Clarke's largest fragment, which is  wide, will obliterate Western Europe and its aftermath will kill most of the life on the planet. The family arrives at the Osgoode airport barely in time to board the last flight out. As they reach Greenland, a comet fragment strikes off the coast, and the shockwave causes the plane to crash-land, killing the pilots. The Garritys and the rest of the passengers flag down a military truck and enter the bunker complex just as the largest fragment enters the atmosphere and hits, devastating civilization while John and his family are protected from the blast by the bunker.

After the impact, various cities are shown in total ruin, including Sydney, Chicago, Paris, and Mexico City. But Greenland makes contact with survivors from other shelters around the globe. Nine months later, the Garritys and other occupants exit the shelter to a desolate, barren landscape, as the atmosphere clears, giving the survivors the chance to rebuild.

Cast

Production
In May 2018, Chris Evans joined the cast of the film, with Neill Blomkamp directing from a screenplay by Chris Sparling. In February 2019, it was announced Blomkamp would no longer direct the film. That same month, Ric Roman Waugh joined the project as director, with Gerard Butler being added to the cast of the film, replacing Blomkamp and Evans respectively, with Butler producing under his G-Base banner. In June 2019, Morena Baccarin joined the cast of the film. In July 2019, Scott Glenn, Andrew Bachelor and Roger Dale Floyd also joined, as did David Denman, in August.

Principal photography began in June 2019 and wrapped up on August 16 of the same year in Atlanta.

David Buckley, who previously worked with Waugh on Angel Has Fallen, composed the film's score.

Release
In March 2019, STX Entertainment acquired distribution rights to the film. It was originally scheduled to be theatrically released on June 12, 2020, but was delayed to July 30, 2020, and then August 14, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Its domestic release was again delayed on July 24, moving to September 25, 2020. The film's release schedule includes Belgium (July 29), France (August 5), and Scandinavia (August 12). On September 14, it was announced the film's American release has been delayed again, this time to sometime later in 2020.

On September 30, the studio announced the film would be skipping theaters and going to be available to buy via video on demand on October 13, before being made available to rent on October 27. The following day, the studio announced the film had its U.S. pay TV and streaming rights sold to HBO for $20–30 million, who will release it in early 2021 and have it stream on HBO Max and Amazon Prime for the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia releases. It was later reported the VOD release date had been pushed to December 18. The studio spent an estimated $10 million promoting the film domestically.

Reception

Box office and VoD
Greenland was first released in Belgium, making $73,112 from 55 theaters on its opening weekend. On its first day of release in France, the film made $255,000 with 31,000 tickets sold, 61% ahead of Butler's Olympus Has Fallen (2013) despite fewer theaters and tight COVID-19 restrictions. Overall, it debuted to $1.09 million in the country, with a 10-day international total of $1.3 million. In its third weekend of international release, the film finished first in nine countries and made a total of $2.82 million. In November the film opened in China and Mexico, debuting to $3.4 million and $882,000, respectively; the running global total was $43.1 million.

Upon the film's VOD release in the United States, it was the second-most rented on FandangoNow, and third on Apple TV and Google Play. The film remained near the top of rental charts into February, finishing first at both Google Play and Apple TV. In February 24, IndieWire estimated the film had already netted STX Films $60–80 million in profit, including around $32 million from two million PVOD rentals.

Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of  based on  reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "Beware, comets of Greenland: Gerard Butler is here to protect Earth – and show audiences an improbably entertaining time." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Richard Roeper gave the film three out of four stars, saying, "Unlike the typical, effects-laden, comet-threatens-the-planet B-movie, Greenland is more in the vein of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, with the scenes of chaos and destruction serving as the backdrop for the story of one family's desperate quest for survival — even when circumstances have ripped them apart." Writing for IndieWire, David Ehrlich gave the film a grade of B and said, "By eschewing spectacle and focusing on the human scale of a crisis, Greenland becomes the rare disaster movie that feels realistic."

Katie Walsh of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "[the film is] not just plausible but recognizable. There's very little otherworldly about this cinematic apocalypse. These are the people, places and, yes, behaviors we know all too well".

Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter said "The gritty verisimilitude that the star and director Ric Roman Waugh bring to the table goes a long way in making this B-level blockbuster a timely and guilty pleasure". Chris Hewitt of the Star Tribune called it a "capably done [film]".

According to Matthew Monagle of The Austin Chronicle, "Greenland might be a B-movie at heart, but in keeping at least one toe on the ground at all times, the filmmakers craft something that punches well above its weight class".

The criticism of the film, just like its praise, was abundant as well. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club compared Greenland to Roland Emmerich's films, while Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote "A thriller isn't supposed to be a cakewalk; if it were, it wouldn't thrill".

Sequel
In June 2021, it was announced a sequel titled Greenland: Migration was in development, and will reportedly center on the Garritys' journey across a frozen European wasteland to find a new home. The following month, STX acquired the worldwide distribution rights for the film at 2021 Cannes Film Festival for $75 million, and agreed to give the sequel a $65 million budget.

References

External links
 
 

2020s disaster films
American disaster films
Apocalyptic films
Films directed by Ric Roman Waugh
Films postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Films scored by David Buckley
Films shot in Atlanta
STX Entertainment films
Films about families
Films set in Atlanta
Films set in Canada
Films set in Greenland
Films set in Kentucky
Films set in New York (state)
Films set in the United States
Films about impact events
Comets in film
Films produced by Gerard Butler
Films produced by Basil Iwanyk
Thunder Road Films films
2020s English-language films
Disaster thriller films
2020s American films
Films set in bunkers