New Wave

Stacks of harrowingly realistic human corpses litter the alleys. Grimy puddles of water collect in every corner. Cast and crew form soup lines that stretch to epic lengths. And the stars of Poseidon are starting to get restless here on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank in mid-October. Emmy Rossum (The Phantom of the Opera) peeps out of the hair-and-makeup wagon to show off a shocking blond wig that she's testing for an audition elsewhere. She's never seen herself with golden locks. ''There's always a lot of waiting around on a movie this size,'' she says, moments after strutting about like one of those Victoria's Secret angels. Nearby, Jacinda Barrett (Ladder 49) plays with her two small dogs, whom she has secretly slipped onto the lot, while costars Mike Vogel (Rumor Has It), 26, and Jimmy Bennett (Firewall), 10, compete to see who can affix the greater volume of Scotch tape to the other's hair. Hours pass. ''We're never going back to work!'' Vogel bleats in borderline mock exasperation. It's easy to believe him.

But what's a little more waiting around when it's been 34 years since this ship last sailed on the big screen? Now back courtesy of action-flick titan Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Troy), Poseidon treads in familiar, fictitious waters: A 150-foot rogue wave capsizes a luxury ocean liner on New Year's Eve, swamping the ship and killing thousands, leaving a small band to fight their way out. At stake for Warner Bros. (a division of EW parent Time Warner) is a boatload of cash — $140 million, $160 million, or $175 million before marketing costs, depending on how the filmmakers are spinning things today. And yet...it's not as if millions of people were begging for one more take on Paul Gallico's 1969 novel — not after 1972's star-studded, Oscar-winning classic The Poseidon Adventure, 1979's sequel Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, and a TV-movie remake that aired on NBC last fall.

So what is Warner Bros. doing sinking so much cash into this movie? Welcome to the ultimate example of 21st-century blockbuster summer entertainment. It's big. It stars several not-quite-A-listers, led by Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, and Richard Dreyfuss. It's based on a familiar property. It docks in theaters (on May 12) bloated with a bazillion bucks' worth of special effects, and seeks to make a fast dollar before the next behemoth (The Da Vinci Code) pulls into port and leaves the colossal cruiser bobbing in its wake. Ask folks involved why they opted to make it, and you're not going to get a lot of palaver about high art and noble intentions. After all, who are we kidding? For Shelley Winters' sake, it's a disaster movie — it's fun! ''It felt like a big idea,'' says Warner Bros. production president Jeff Robinov. ''It felt like fun. It felt like an exciting summer movie.'' Adds Petersen: ''When I was a kid, I saw The Poseidon Adventure and I liked it very much.... I like to do movies with water. I don't know why.'' There you go.

Of course, Poseidon isn't Petersen's maiden voyage into disaster land. In fact, he sees it as completing a sea-based action trilogy — of sorts.'' Das Boot also was in a boat, but it was the horrible disaster of war,'' he says in his soft German accent. ''And then I did The Perfect Storm, which had a disaster situation but involved professionals.'' And now, Poseidon: a complete fiction involving everyday schmoes. Approached by Mike Fleiss (that's right: exec producer of The Bachelor, cousin of Heidi), who had conceived of a remake, Petersen had originally signed on as a producer. But ''the more I worked on this, I said, 'Jesus Christ, I don't know if I shouldn't direct it myself,''' he recounts. ''I got hooked.''