‘Empires of the Deep’: the $130million unreleased vanity project
Epics, throughout cinema history, have almost always been associated with big-budget productions and even bigger expectations. While they don’t always succeed in meeting those expectations, the stories about their productions never fail to be interesting. That is undoubtedly the case for Empires of the Deep, a strange 3D epic which has seemingly been in production for more than a decade, but no updates ever come out.
While the stories of spectacular failures such as Waterworld are fairly well-known, analysing an unreleased project like Empires of the Deep is much more complicated. Initially developed by a Chinese billionaire named Jon Jiang, who was deeply moved by the movies of pioneers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, the film was supposed to be a groundbreaking 3D action adventure that would push the boundaries of the medium.
Impressed by James Cameron’s approach to the epic, Jiang even hired his longtime collaborator Randall Frakes to write the screenplay. At first, big names were floating around, and stars such as Monica Bellucci were approached. However, it was Olga Kurylenko and Steve Polites who eventually signed on to the project while Jonathan Lawrence was hired to direct. Still, many sources claimed it was going to be one of the biggest US-Chinese co-productions in history.
That couldn’t be further from the truth, as doubts about the project were rife among the cast and crew even then. The filming of Empires of the Deep began in 2009, but it was a recipe for disaster. The Chinese team didn’t work well with the international crew, while Jiang and Lawrence had multiple clashes about all kinds of creative choices. To make matters worse, Lawrence began a re-write of the script, which further delayed the process.
In a 2013 interview with The Playlist, Kurylenko expressed her optimism about the ongoing production, but the difficulties were apparent even back then. When asked about the release schedule for Empires of the Deep, the actor surprisingly revealed that she was not privy to the ambiguous details either: “I’m hearing is they actually said it’s coming out, but now there’s nothing again. I think it’s going to come out, at least in China.”
After Lawrence gave up on the project, multiple filmmakers tried to salvage the movie, but it was just too much of a mess to be remotely redeemable. At one point in 2016, the producers were forced to start a crowdfunding campaign to finish the production, but, to nobody’s surprise, they couldn’t raise enough money. Initially intended to be the start of a major franchise, Empires of the Deep sputtered and died before it ever got going.
During an interview, producer Mark Byers reflected on the production process and praised Lawrence’s directorial vision. “[Jon has] a really good heart and the core of a great idea, but couldn’t let go of it… [He] was influenced by George Lucas and James Cameron, he just grabbed onto the auteur thing.” However, even during the filming, actor Steve Polites knew that something was wrong because it didn’t feel like a $130million production.
“It does have all the makings of a cult movie,” Polites later said. “It seems like every six months or a year, I get a call or an email saying it’s premiering… I’ve made my peace with it. I learned a lot about myself and the business. I don’t regret it.” Whether we’ll ever get to see something resembling a final cut of Empires of the Deep is still an unanswered question, but the released trailer gives us a brief idea of the hilarious disaster we missed out on.
Watch the trailer below.
