The movie director, Wolfgang Petersen, passed away at the age of 81.
The legendary director acclaimed German-language film “Das Boot” into a career directing Hollywood blockbusters such as “In the Line of Fire,” “Air Force One,” “The Perfect Storm” and “Troy”.
The devastating news of Petersen was confirmed by his production company.
In 1981, “Das Boot” was the harrowing story of life aboard a German U-boat during World War II. On the IMDb’s list of 250 top-rated films, “Das Boot” is No. 71.
In 1984, Petersen’s first film as director and co-script in Hollywood was the fantasy adventure “The Never Ending Story,”.
In 1997, “Air Force One” The movie soared at the box office, taking $315 million worldwide.
In 2000, “The Perfect Storm,” a story from the book by Sebastian Junger about the confluence of meteorological events give success and earned $329 million worldwide.
“Troy,” based on Homer’s Iliad, and filled with epic-scale action worldwide gross was $497 million.
In 2006, “Poseidon” generated worldwide box office of $182 million, resulting in a huge loss for Time Warner.
The director seemed to retire at that point, but a decade later he made a film in Germany, “Vier gegen die Bank”, a remake of his own 1976 German TV movie of the same name that was based on 1972 novel “The Nixon Recession Caper” by Ralph Maloney.
Petersen was born in Emden, Germany. He attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg from 1953-60. In the 1960s he directed plays at Hamburg’s Ernst Deutsch Theater. After studying theater in Berlin and Hamburg, he attended Berlin’s Film and Television Academy.
Petersen was married to German actress Ursula Sieg until their divorce in 1978. He is survived by second wife Maria-Antoinette Borgel, a German script supervisor and assistant director whom he married in 1978, and a son by Sieg, writer-director Daniel Petersen.
