rewatched Leviathan (1989) last night. Holds up extremely well. Did some researching on how Leviathan and The Abyss came out the same year and this story is insane.
In 1987, James Cameron announced his next movie (original script) would be a sea lab movie called The Abyss released in summer 1989. Other studies SCRAMBLED to beat him to the theatres with their own sealab movie blockbuster.
as a result, SIX movies came out that summer that were all sealab monster or sealab alien movies.
Leviathan (my personal favorite of the bunch (Soviet engineered monster)
The Abyss (space aliens)
Deep Star Six (ancient crustacean monster that is from the Cretaceous period that somehow survived)
lords of the deep (space aliens)
Evil Below (space aliens)
The Rift (mutates monsters, maybe space aliens)
I’m currently watching Deepstar Six. Between the Abyss and Leviathan, Leviathan I think is. Better movie even if lower budget. Tighter cast, tighter pacing, better writing.
Not to mention the eye candy. Gosh dang! Some foxy ladies in this movie. Peter Weller is the leading man, filming this after Robocop.
But how insane is it to have SIX sea lab monster movies. We saw something similar with Deep Impact vs Armageddon, or Batman v Superman and Captain America Civil War. But imagine instead of twin movies, there’s SIX with similar plot and settings. Nuts.
update: while deepstar six probably has the most interesting monster concept (to me), this was far worse than abyss or leviathan. Extraordinarily bad. Haven’t seen the other 3.
