Hit an iceberg and sink. Get battered by a perfect storm and sink. Get sideswiped by a white whale and sink. Sometimes there's nothing like a big ship going down to grab an audience's attention. Or so a nervous Hollywood hopes.

Mindful that the biggest-grossing movie of all time is "Titanic," many are looking at "Poseidon," a $160 million remake of a beloved disaster film, to show whether the great box office slump of 2005 is over or going to continue for a second consecutive year.

The opening of Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible III" fell short of expectations, setting the stage for fears that this year's summer films might sink rather than swim.

And that makes a heavy burden for German-born director Wolfgang Petersen and the water-logged cast and crew of "Poseidon," who spent five months filming in water tanks and have the bruises and bouts of pneumonia to prove it.

The film is a remake of the fondly remembered but now outdated 1972 movie "The Poseidon Adventure," which many claim helped make the disaster movie division a Hollywood staple.

Level: B2