question by saying "Better. A lot better." Cast Peter Weller as Steven Beck Richard Crenna as Dr. Glen "Doc" Thompson Amanda Pays as Elizabeth "Willie" Williams Daniel Stern as Buzz "Sixpack" Parrish Ernie Hudson as Justin Jones Michael Carmine as Tony "DeJesus" Rodero Lisa Eilbacher as Bridget "Bow" Bowman Héctor Elizondo as G.P. Cobb Meg Foster as Ms. Martin Eugene Lipinski as Russian Captain Tom Woodruff Jr. as Lead Creature Production Leviathan was directed by George P. Cosmatos, who had previously directed the Sylvester Stallone-starring action films Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra. The screenplay was written by David Webb Peoples (Blade Runner) and Jeb Stuart (Die Hard). Oscar-nominated and BSC Award-winning cinematographer Alex Thomson served as the film's director of photography. Four-time Oscar-winning visual effects designer Stan Winston was responsible for the creature effects. Release Leviathan was first released to theaters on March 17, 1989. Leviathan was first released to DVD on September 29, 1998. Sean Carlson of IGN compared the DVD release of Leviathan to that of DeepStar Six, giving the DVD 8 of 10 stars, praising the video quality but criticizing the audio and mentioning the only extra was the film's trailer. The film was released on Blu-ray by Scream Factory in August 2014. Reception The film opened on 1,393 theaters generating a box office gross of $5,029,164 for its opening weekend, placing second. It went to gross $15,704,614 in the United States and Canada. In Italy it grossed $3.2 million. However, it was received poorly and currently has a 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 4.60 out of 10. The site's critics consensus reads, "A deep-sea thriller with an unusually strong cast and potent ideas, Leviathan quickly plunges into an abyss of weak thrills and lame kills." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100 based on 12 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Writing for The New York Times, Janet Maslin was reserved in her praise and wrote that it "compares favorably with the other recent aquatic horror film Deepstar Six but probably not with anything else" and that "The latter half of the film is one long feeding frenzy, guided by a familiar horror-film principle: survival of the best-looking." Movie critic for the Chicago Tribune, Dave Kehr, criticized the movie, writing "In the dumb fun department, Leviathan is