Wolfgang Petersen

Director

Birthday March 14, 1941

Birth Sign Pisces

Birthplace Emden, Germany

DEATH DATE 2022-8-12, Los Angeles, California, U.S. (81 years old)

Nationality Germany

Height 5' 10" (1.78 m)

#17076 Most Popular

1941

Wolfgang Petersen (14 March 1941 – 12 August 2022) was a German filmmaker.

Petersen was born on 14 March 1941 in Emden, the son of a naval officer.

1953

From 1953 to 1960, Petersen attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg.

He made his first films with an 8 mm camera while still at school.

1960

In the 1960s he was directing plays at Hamburg's Ernst Deutsch Theater.

1966

After studying theater in Berlin and Hamburg, Petersen attended the Film and Television Academy in Berlin (1966–1970).

Petersen's first productions were for German television, and it was during his work on the popular German Tatort (Crime Scene) TV series that he first met and worked with the actor Jürgen Prochnow — who would later appear as the U-boat captain in Petersen's famous Das Boot.

1969

Petersen's $160 million epic film Poseidon, a re-telling of the 1969 Paul Gallico novel The Poseidon Adventure (previously adapted for the 1972 disaster film), was released by Warner Bros. in May 2006.

The film performed poorly in the U.S., barely exceeding $60 million in domestic box office receipts by early August, but international sales surpassed $121 million.

1974

Petersen made his first theatrical feature film in 1974, the psychological thriller One or the Other of Us, based on the novel Einer von uns beiden by Horst Bosetzky and published anonymously under his pseudonym and starring Jürgen Prochnow.

1977

The most famous of his Tatort episodes is Reifezeugnis (Maturity Certificate) from 1977 with the young Nastassja Kinski.

He shot 6 Tatort episodes.

He next directed the 1977 film Die Konsequenz, a black/white adaptation of Alexander Ziegler's autobiographical novel of homosexual love.

In its time, the film was considered so radical that when first broadcast in Germany, the Bavarian network Bayerischer Rundfunk turned off the transmitters rather than broadcast it.

1978

In 1978, he married his assistant Maria Borgel.

1981

He was nominated for two Academy Awards for the World War II submarine warfare film Das Boot (1981).

1982

His next feature was the World War II epic Das Boot, released in early 1982.

The film chronicles the experiences of a German submarine crew engaged in the "Battle of the Atlantic".

Though not an immediate financial success, the film received highly positive reviews and was nominated for six Academy Awards, two of which (for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay) went to Petersen; he was also nominated for a BAFTA Award and DGA Award.

The film starred Jürgen Prochnow as the U-boat Captain, who became a good example of Petersen's action characters, a man at war who confronts danger and fate at sea.

1984

His other films include The NeverEnding Story (1984), Enemy Mine (1985), In the Line of Fire (1993), Outbreak (1995), Air Force One (1997), The Perfect Storm (2000), Troy (2004), and Poseidon (2006).

After The NeverEnding Story (1984), Petersen's first English-language film, he directed Enemy Mine (1985), which was not a critical or box office success.

1986

Petersen moved to Los Angeles in 1986 and subsequently acquired American citizenship.

Petersen died of pancreatic cancer on 12 August 2022, at the age of 81, at his home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, United States.

Source:

TV movies

TV series

1993

He hit his stride in 1993 with the assassination thriller In the Line of Fire.

1995

Starring Clint Eastwood as an angst-ridden presidential Secret Service guard, In the Line of Fire gave Petersen the box office clout he needed to direct another suspense thriller, Outbreak (1995), starring Dustin Hoffman.

1997

The 1997 Petersen blockbuster Air Force One did very well at the box office, with generally positive critical reviews from movie critics.

For both Air Force One and Outbreak, Petersen teamed up with the German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, who has also worked frequently with director Martin Scorsese.

1998

By 1998, Petersen was an established Hollywood director, with the power to both re-release his classic Das Boot in a new director's cut and to helm star-studded action-thrillers.

As such, he was originally considered to direct the first movie in the Harry Potter film series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

2000

Petersen pulled out of the running in March 2000.

In the 2000s, Petersen continued to direct two summer blockbusters, the films The Perfect Storm (2000) and Troy (2004).

The success of the former helped his Radiant Productions company to sign a deal with Warner Bros.

2006

His potential projects included a live-action adaptation of the 2006 anime film Paprika and a film adaptation of the science fiction novel Old Man's War.

2008

Although hired to direct the film adaptation of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card that was scheduled for release in 2008, he later "moved on" from the project.

2016

After a ten-year hiatus, Petersen returned in 2016 as director of the heist comedy Vier gegen die Bank, his first German-language film since Das Boot in 1981.

Petersen's first marriage was with actress ; they had a son.