Greenland 2 Director Explains Why Family Drama Trumps Politics

As Greenland 2: Migration hits theaters, 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 destroyed by an earthquake, forcing them to cross Europe in search of safety. While the film was in post-production, real-world headlines about Greenland—sparked by then-President Donald Trump’s interest in acquiring the territory—began to swirl, adding an unexpected layer of relevance to the movie ’s title and setting.

Director Ric Roman Waugh, however, made it clear that the creative team stayed focused on their original vision. When asked about the film’s accidental overlap with current events, Waugh said,

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 Catastrophe

Waugh emphasized that the sequel, like its predecessor, is rooted in the personal struggles of the Garrity family.

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.

Survival, Reflection, and the Human Spirit

Gerard Butler, reflecting on the film’s themes, shared his own thoughts about facing disaster. He told People Magazine,

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?'

Butler recalled the early days of the pandemic, when he escaped 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.