Summary
- The 4K remaster of The Abyss is coming to Disney+.
- The film follows a US search and rescue team recovering a submarine, before finding something down there.
- Production was a Hollywood horror story, shot mostly underwater, and infamously difficult for cast and crew.
James Cameron is one of the most storied filmmakers in the history of the artistic medium. From Terminator and Aliens on through to Titanic and Avatar, the Canadian director has helmed some of the biggest and best movies ever made. Now, the one movie he ever made that could be considered a box office flop (of sorts) is coming to Disney+ in 4K quality.
In the mid-'80s, James Cameron took on the challenge of bringing an Alien sequel to life. When Aliens released in 1986, Cameron announced himself to the moviegoing world at large just two years after The Terminator became a surprise hit: this was a director who knew what he was doing. In 1991, Terminator 2: Judgment Day set the box office on fire and became the third-highest-grossing movie ever (at the time of release). A lot of people forget a smaller, non-franchise movie that Cameron directed between Aliens and Terminator 2: 1989's The Abyss, starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and the always-criminally-underrated Michael Biehn.
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On April 11th, the 4K remaster of the cult classic will officially hit Disney+. Made on a budget of around $45 million, it grossed approximately $90 million worldwide, meaning it just about broke even in Hollywood terms. For someone like James Cameron, genuinely considered to be the historical king of the box office, this lackluster monetary reception makes The Abyss something of a dud. That's not to say it earned poor reviews from those who saw it. The original cut of the film sits at an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the 1993 Special Edition garnered even better reviews from critics. The film was also nominated for four Academy Awards and won for Best Visual Effects.
The Abyss Is Well Worth A Watch More Than 35 Years After Release
The Abyss follows a United States search and rescue team who works with an oil crew to recover an American submarine in the depths of the Caribbean before the Soviet Union gets to it first. Of course, this is just the setup for all the sci-fi shenanigans that follow. It's not worth spoiling here, but if you enjoy classic filmmaking and speculative fiction, The Abyss is well worth your time. To be frank, if you consider yourself a movie buff at all, The Abyss is worth watching just to delve into the film's disastrous production afterward.
You see, The Abyss's production is something of a Hollywood horror story that is infamous in Tinseltown circles. As more than a third of the film is shot entirely underwater, the production team had to, you know, shoot all of those scenes underwater for real. This was the 1980s, after all... CGI and all of its wonders was in its infancy. This meant using an abandoned nuclear power plant's reactor, which held around 7.5 million gallons of water, for the shoot. Every single complication you could think of popped up during the film's principal photography. Here are just a few things the creative team had to deal with: the tank sprung a massive leak, over-chlorination burned skin and stripped off hair, and the cast and crew worked 70-hour weeks over a six-month-long period.
It's safe to say that tensions rose as the cast and crew fought their way through one of the most harrowing big-budget film shoots in American film history. The result is a James Cameron-led cult classic that still marvels and delights all these years later.
The Abyss is set to start streaming on Disney+ on April 11.
