Greenland 2 Director on Steering Clear of Political Drama
Greenland 2: Migration brings Gerard Butler back for another survival epic, but director Ric Roman Waugh reveals why the film sidesteps real-world politics to focus on family and post-pandemic trauma.
With the release of Greenland 2: Migration, Gerard Butler returns as John Garrity, a structural engineer navigating a shattered world. The sequel picks up after the Garrity family’s underground refuge in Greenland is wiped out by an earthquake, forcing them to trek across Europe in search of somewhere new to call home. As the film was being wrapped up, the real Greenland found itself in the headlines, thanks to then-US president Donald Trump’s interest in buying the territory for military reasons. The timing was uncanny, but the filmmakers weren’t swayed by the political noise swirling around them.
Director Ric Roman Waugh explained how the team kept their focus, saying,
“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 Story
Waugh was clear that the heart of the film lies in the family’s internal struggles, not in global politics.
“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.”
Post-Pandemic Parallels and Mental Health
The sequel leans into the psychological impact of surviving disaster, drawing on the collective experience of the pandemic. The inclusion of therapists in the story reflects a world grappling with trauma and the challenge of rebuilding normal life. The film asks what it would really mean for people to spend years underground, and how that would shape their minds and relationships once they emerged.
Waugh’s approach is to keep the story grounded in the everyday realities of its characters, rather than getting caught up in the bigger picture of international politics. The focus is on how people cope, adapt, and try to find hope after everything’s been turned upside down.
Gerard Butler on Facing Disaster
Butler himself has thought about how he’d handle a real-life catastrophe. He shared,
“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 recalled the early days of the pandemic, when he took off in an RV to the mountains of Sedona, Arizona.
“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.”