Jude Law Talks BLACK SEA In New Featurette

Go behind the scenes of Focus Features’ upcoming submarine thriller BLACK SEA starring Jude Law, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, and David Threlfall.

A suspenseful adventure thriller directed by Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald, centering on a rogue submarine captain (two-time Academy Award nominee Jude Law) who pulls together a misfit crew to go after a sunken treasure rumored to be lost in the depths of the Black Sea. As greed and desperation take control onboard their claustrophobic vessel, the increasing uncertainty of the mission causes the men to turn on each other to fight for their own survival. (Trailer)

Macdonald explains, “Black Sea is an old-fashioned adventure story, populated by a great set of characters. Now, as with any movie taking place on a submarine, we knew there were certain elements we needed to have: an explosion where the sub almost goes down, and a mutiny, for example.

“The setting of a submarine is inherently tense by nature – there’s the constant threat of water somehow coming in, even with precautions taken.”

In seeking to explore these themes further, Macdonald (One Day in September and The Last King of Scotland) realized that he “wanted to make a film about the terror of being trapped underwater – and I felt that there’s a general fear attributed to submarines because of the inherent claustrophobia.

“I also gave thought to how the people who do sail them become a family. They can get so used to being with each other within the confines of a submarine that when they get off of it they are quite dysfunctional people. There are people who are happier at sea, happier in this tin can, because they understand it and they understand the world that’s around them – whereas in the real world, they are lost. That became an inspiration for the characters here, as did our own fascination with what submariners do – spending months and months on a submarine. So I thought, ‘Let’s make a film in a submarine.’”

Accordingly, he discussed the idea of making a submarine-set film on just one soundstage with his frequent collaborator, BAFTA Award-winning producer Charles Steel. “What came to mind for us was the incident years ago with that Russian submarine, the Kursk, which became trapped at the bottom of the ocean,” notes Steel.

The team also found themselves reflecting on such classic movies as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Wages of Fear and the latter’s remake Sorcerer, all of which were visceral and gritty while exploring human nature – whether startlingly self-preserving, surprisingly compassionate, or aggressively greedy.

Macdonald elaborates, “Those movies didn’t have submarines in them. But they had ideas central to the story we wanted to tell: madness overtaking characters in a search for a fortune, for instance.”

BLACK SEA will open in NY and LA on January 23rd and across the US on January 30th.

Photo Credit: Alex Bailey / Focus Features