Production
The movie is based on the novel Dead Calm by Charles Williams, which Orson Welles had started filming in the late 1960s but never completed. Producer Tony Bill had tried to buy the rights from Welles but never been successful. He mentioned this to Phil Noyce, giving him a copy of the book in 1984. Noyce enjoyed the book and showed it to George Miller and Terry Hayes who were enthusiastic. Miller managed to persuade Oja Kodar, Welles' companion who controlled the rights to the novel, to sell the book to Kennedy Miller.
Other than character names and the scenario of a woman trapped on a boat with a psychopath, the film bears little resemblance to the book, which had several other main characters (including Hughie's wife and another couple), and presented Hughie as a nominally asexual manchild.
The movie was filmed over a 14-week span in the Whitsunday Islands in the winter of 1987. George Miller directed some sequences himself, including one where Sam Neill's character is tormented in the boat by a shark. This scene ended up being dropped from the final film. The final coda sequence was filmed at the request of Warner Bros seven months after principal photography finished.
Read more about this topic: Dead Calm (film)
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