"The sea and the people who sail it are an endless source of mystery and fascination," observes renowned producer Joel Silver, who along with his Dark Castle Entertainment partner Robert Zemeckis originated HBO's classic late-night-fright series Tales from the Crypt and produced the hit feature films House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts.

"Similarly, ghost stories are perennially captivating, but there has never been a satisfying marriage of the two. Ghost Ship appeals to the dark side of our nature that loves the thrill of being scared, that craves that adrenaline rush, and it also fuels our enduring curiosity about the mysterious and the unexplained."

Indeed, Ghost Ship combines breathtaking high seas action with a sinister supernatural story set aboard the Antonia Graza, an errant luxury liner thought lost for more than 40 years. "With Thirteen Ghosts, we put a twist on the conventional haunted house narrative and heightened the tension by setting the film in a structure made almost entirely of glass," Silver explains. "In Ghost Ship, the structure in question is a derelict cruise liner that was reported missing in 1962 and is recovered by an ambitious salvage team. Not only does the audience take a harrowing journey through this haunted vessel with our heroes, but they experience the same terrifying claustrophobia as the characters because escape is not an option. They're out in the middle of the ocean where there's nowhere to run and no place to hide."

"In Ghost Ship, House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts, the characters are ultimately undone by their own desire for some form of material gain," Silver notes. "In one sense they're the victims of the evil they encounter, but at the same time, it's their own avarice that conjures up that evil and empowers it to destroy them."

In characteristically sinister Dark Castle style, Ghost Ship is rife with tension from beginning to end. At its core, the film is a haunted house story set on the open sea, and the production design for the Antonia Graza sets needed to invoke an appropriately unsettling atmosphere.

"These characters are not simply trapped in a dangerous situation that they have to escape from," Silver emphasises. "They're literally in the middle of nowhere. There's no help coming and there's no way to escape. The sets are crucial in creating an extremely menacing, foreboding sense of being trapped not only on the ship, but in the vastness of the ocean."

Early on, the filmmakers made the decision not to film onboard an actual ship. "The temptation was always to shoot on the real thing," says director Steve Beck, who also helmed Dark Castle's successful 2001 Halloween release Thirteen Ghosts. Beck says. "We actually visited a few of them, but every time we thought, 'How are we ever going to get a dolly through this alley? Or down this hallway?' When you're shooting you often have to punch through a wall in order to get the shot you need, and on a steel ship that's impossible. We knew the real thing would be far too limiting."

Instead, they decided to build a ship of their own. Finding a production designer who could rise to this unique challenge was key. "Our production designer, Grace Walker, built some truly incredible sets," says Silver. "We first see this majestic ocean liner in all its glory, then we see it after it has been sitting derelict in the ocean for forty years, and it's believable in both of its incarnations. It's an amazing transformation."

Walker, whose credits include Queen of the Damned and The Island of Dr. Moreau, says that constructing the various parts of an ocean liner was an enormous undertaking. "I've never been asked to build a ship before - it was very interesting! Among the sets we built were a life-size foredeck and bow, an engine room and an elaborate ballroom."

Parts of the sets were actually used out on the open seas, so it was imperative that the design met certain criteria. "We enlisted the assistance of naval architects," says Walker, "to help us with the design of the ship's hull, to make sure we got the shape right and that it would be seaworthy.  The ship's sizeable foredeck had to be built out on location. "It was a full scale replica, so it wouldn't have fit into a studio," Walker explains. "It also needed to have sky backgrounds surrounding it, so we built it on a hill to achieve the desired effect."

Visual effects, including CGI and the use of miniatures, played a large part in the creation of Ghost Ship. "We had to create an immense ocean liner and a big tugboat with a macho personality all its own," says producer Gilbert Adler. "We felt the best way to retain the scope of the film in the special effects shots would be through the use of miniatures. Of course, our 'miniature' ocean liner was in fact about thirty-five feet long and weighed several tons."

The various spirits inhabiting the Antonia Graza have quite an impact on their mortal visitors and the filmmakers went to great pains to give them the impression of corporeality. "Ghosts should always be as shockingly realistic as possible," asserts Beck, "because that's when they have the most power. The minute you introduce an effect on top of that I think the beast essentially loses its fangs."

"All of our ghost effects are derived from physical props or actors," Duguid adds. "Their grace and beauty is a result of how we took that live action footage and effected it. We wanted to give the ghosts a greasy, transitional quality. Things of the real world are generally solid and warm and rich, but things from the ghost world are bled of color saturation and their presence is temporal - they're there, then you blink and they're gone. It's that kind of dynamic and movement that we wanted to evoke."

The filmmakers found the perfect shooting location for Ghost Ship at the Warner Roadshow Studios on Australia's Gold Coast. "I had an excellent experience making all three Matrix films in Australia," Silver recalls. "The country is very diverse and conducive to film production, and Australian crews are some of the best that you'll find in the world. It's a great place to shoot a movie."

the writers

MARK HANLON (Screenwriter) was born in San Francisco, California. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology from UCLA in 1984, after which he worked as a cinematographer and editor in television news and documentaries for clients such as Britain's ITN and CBS News.

In 1999 Hanlon marked his feature directorial debut with Buddy Boy, produced by Cary Woods (Kids, Gummo, Copland) from Hanlon's original screenplay. Starring Aidan Gillen, Emmanuelle Seigner, and Susan Tyrrell, Buddy Boy was an official selection of the Venice International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. It was released in 2000 by Fine Line Features.

Hanlon is currently adapting the Harry Crews novel The Knockout Artist for director Sean Penn and will next direct his own screen adaptation of the Simon Maginn novel Methods of Confinement.

JOHN POGUE (Screenwriter) graduated from Yale in 1987, and currently lives in Los Angeles. In 2001, he served as executive producer on The Fast and the Furious, directed by Rob Cohen, starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. He also co-wrote Rollerball, directed by John McTiernan, starring Chris Klein, LL Cool J and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. In 1999, he produced with Neal Moritz and wrote the secret society thriller The Skulls, also directed by Rob Cohen. The Skulls starred Joshua Jackson and Paul Walker. Pogue directed the 2nd Unit on the film. Prior to The Skulls, Pogue wrote Warner Bros. Pictures' U. S. Marshals, the spin-off of The Fugitive. U.S. Marshals starred Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes and was directed by Stuart Baird.

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