Peter Berg started his career in Hollywood as an actor on the TV series 21 Jump Street back in 1988. He got his break behind the camera when he wrote and directed 1998's Very Bad Things. From there, Peter's career took off as he went onto write and direct 2004's Friday Night Lights, as well as being handed the reins of blockbusters with budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars like Hancock and Battleship.
It was while Peter was working on Battleship in 2011 when Summit Entertainment announced it had purchased the movie rights to a New York Times article entitled Deepwater Horizon's Final Hours.
Initially, stuntman Ric Roman Waugh was in talks to direct the article-turned-Hollywood blockbuster. But he dropped off and on July 11th, 2014, J.C. Chandor was hired. He had just come off writing and directing another disaster at sea film, All Is Lost, with Robert Redford.
A month after J.C. was hired, Mark Wahlberg signed on to play the lead role of the film. Then, for reasons only the producers in Hollywood know, J.C. was let go in favor of Peter Berg, who had great success working with Mark on 2013's Lone Survivor.
In 2015, Kate Hudson was cast, making Deepwater Horizon the very first time Kate Hudson would be on screen with the man who raised her as his daughter, Kurt Russell.
Before you go see the movie, let's take a few minutes to learn what happened before, during, and after the disaster so you'll know just how accurate Hollywood was during its retelling.