Greenland 2: How a Disaster Film Dodges Real-World Politics

As Greenland 2: Migration lands in cinemas, audiences are once again plunged into the chaos of a world upended by catastrophe. Gerard Butler reprises his role as John Garrity, a structural engineer navigating a battered Europe with his family, all in search of a place to call home after their underground refuge in Greenland is obliterated by an earthquake. The timing of the film’s release, however, has proved oddly synchronous with real-world headlines, as the territory itself found its way into the news thanks to a certain American president’s rather public interest in acquiring it for military reasons. The notion of bargaining with locals to vacate their land was, for a time, more than just tabloid fodder.

Yet, for director Ric Roman Waugh, the noise of geopolitics was little more than background static. When asked about the film’s accidental relevance, Waugh was quick to clarify the creative team’s priorities.

"I would say we've done a really good job of blocking out the noise. We just stuck to our guns. I loved Chris Sparling's script of the first movie where it dealt with a family that was in their own internal crisis. A marriage was torn apart, and they were trying to find their sea legs again. Their kid wondered what the future of his family was until they were thrust into this life-or-death situation. So the second movie really had to have that for us."

Family at the Heart of the Storm

Waugh’s approach, it seems, was to double down on the personal rather than the political. The sequel, he insists, is less about the machinations of nations and more about the private battles waged within four walls.

"It's about the internal conflict of the family again, their own mortality and the legacy that you leave. We don't pull any punches. We told you we were going to scorch the earth [in Greenland], and we did it. Most comet movies don't do that; the asteroid is stopped. After the pandemic and the trauma that us real people dealt with, it's no mistake why we put therapists in this second movie. For the movie, it's, 'What would it be like to be underground for five straight years? What would be the mental toll on people?' So we focused on the post-pandemic parallels as society was coming back and people were actually starting to live their lives again. The focus definitely wasn't the politics of what's going on with nation building; it was much more about the societal stuff that we were dealing with at the time."

Rather than getting swept up in the swirl of international intrigue, the film lingers on the psychological aftermath of disaster. The inclusion of therapists is no accident; Waugh and his team wanted to explore the toll of prolonged isolation, the frayed nerves and battered relationships that emerge when people are forced underground for years on end. The echoes of recent global events are unmistakable, but the lens remains tightly focused on the human cost.

Survival, Reflection, and the Pull of Nature

Gerard Butler, for his part, has found himself pondering the practicalities of survival more than once. The Scottish actor, reflecting on the first film’s release during the early days of the pandemic, shared his own experience of seeking solace far from civilisation.

"You do start to think, 'What would that look like for me? Where would I go? How would I react, in terms of practical effect and the emotional and traumatic impact? How would I live through that?'"

He recounted a trip into the Arizona mountains, where the world’s troubles seemed to recede, if only for a moment.

"When the first movie came out, it was the start of the pandemic and I took an RV trip out deep into the mountains in Sedona, Arizona, and got lost there, and I remember thinking, 'There is nothing wrong in this moment.' This earth can sustain anything. And everything felt alright. I think when you're out in nature, which is really who we are, then things feel okay. Or at least, no matter how bad things are, they get a little better."

In the end, Greenland 2: Migration is less a commentary on the state of the world than a meditation on how people pick up the pieces when everything familiar has been swept away. The film’s creators have chosen to tune out the clamour of current affairs, preferring instead to examine the quieter, more enduring struggles that play out behind closed doors.