Josh Lucas Reveals How The Black Demon Was Much Different Than Poseidon

It has been more than 15 years since Josh Lucas starred in Poseidon, the star-studded spectacle that reimagined the classic disaster film The Poseidon Adventure for a then-modern audience. Following up on his films The Perfect Storm (2000) and Troy (2004), director Wolfgang Petersen made sure Poseidon was one of the biggest nautical adventure films ever put to screen, and while it was a box office disappointment at the time, it did manage to do pretty well on the home video market in the waning years of big-box video rental stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.

Now, he’s back on the open seas — this time literally — with Black Demon, a killer-shark movie that plays with Jaws-style horror as much as it does the thrill of Poseidon. But that isn’t where the differences stop, as Lucas said the whole experience of filming was a wildly different one this time around.

“They were so different,” Lucas told ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian. “Poseidon was inside a studio, right? Poseidon was just a monster, because they flooded the studio at Warner Bros., everybody got sick, you’re inside a cold, old, movie studio, right? This was the opposite. The stage is basically a crazy tank outdoors on the ocean in the Dominican Republic, and you’re living in the ocean, in a way. I was underwater in that tank sometimes 8, 10, 12 hours a day. You’re almost on an ocean reef, so it’s really beautiful. It’s also harsh — you’ve got the environment of the ocean and the heat and the beating sun, but then you’ve got to, again, you’ve got to take the Christian Bale of it all. We play make-believe for a living, right?…We have no idea what the shark’s going to look like or how big it is. It’s just like, ‘Hey, that little green dot off in the distance is trying to kill you,’ and have it be as real as possible, and hopefully have some moments where it’s fun, too.”

Here’s the official synopsis for The Black Demon: 

Josh Lucas (Ford v Ferrari, Yellowstone) stars in this edge-of-your-seat action thriller from the director of Rambo: Last Blood. Oilman Paul Sturges’ (Lucas) idyllic family vacation turns into a nightmare when they encounter a ferocious megalodon shark that will stop at nothing to protect its territory. Stranded and under constant attack, Paul and his family must somehow find a way to get his family back to shore alive before it strikes again in this epic battle between humans and nature.

The cast includes Lucas, Fernanda Urrejola, Venus Ariel, Carlos Solórzano, Julio César Cedillo, Jorge A. Jimenez, Raúl Méndez, Héctor Jiménez, Edgar Flores and Omar Chaparro.

The Black Demon is now in theaters, and you can preorder a digital copy for yourself on most Digital platforms.