Deep Impact (film)

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Deep Impact
Original theatrical poster
Directed by	Mimi Leder
Produced by	David Brown Richard D. Zanuck
Written by	Bruce Joel Rubin Michael Tolkin
Starring	Elijah Wood Téa Leoni Morgan Freeman Leelee Sobieski Vanessa Redgrave Robert Duvall
Music by	James Horner
Cinematography	Dietrich Lohmann
Editing by	Paul Cichocki David Rosenbloom
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	May 08, 1998 (1998-05-08)
Running time	121 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Gross revenue	$349,464,664
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Deep Impact is a 1998 science fiction disaster film released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks SKG in the United States on May 8, 1998. The film was directed by Mimi Leder, and stars Elijah Wood, Téa Leoni, Morgan Freeman, Leelee Sobieski, Vanessa Redgrave and Robert Duvall. The plot describes the attempts to prepare for and destroy a fictional comet (named "Wolf-Biederman"), which is expected to collide with the Earth and cause an Extinction Level Event.

A competing "space impact" film, Armageddon, was released about two months after Deep Impact in the United States.^[1] Deep Impact was lauded by astronomers as being more scientifically relevant,^{[citation needed]} but Armageddon fared better at the box office.^[2]

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Reception
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Plot

Two teenaged astronomy-club members, Leo Biederman (Wood) and Sarah Hotchner (Sobieski), alert astronomer Dr. Marcus Wolf (Charles Martin Smith) to their sighting of an unusual comet. Wolf realizes the comet will hit Earth and attempts to alert his colleagues, but dies in a car accident after leaving the observatory. Twelve months later, a reporter for MSNBC in Washington, DC, Jenny Lerner (Leoni), is researching the resignation of the United States Secretary of the Treasury and is told by a former aide of his constant phone conversations about "Ellie". Lerner misconstrues this as a mistress and politically-charged affair, when in reality, "Ellie" is "E.L.E.": an acronym for extinction-level event.

As a consequence of Lerner's investigation, the government decides to make the knowledge public. U.S. President Tom Beck (Freeman) announces the grim facts: the comet, named "Wolf-Biederman," is seven miles wide, large enough to destroy civilization if it strikes Earth; the USA and Russia will dispatch a crew of astronauts on the spaceship Messiah to destroy the comet, using nuclear weapons. In order to prevent opportunism, Beck freezes all wages and prices. Life changes drastically worldwide, and Biederman and Lerner both become celebrities.

Messiah is constructed in orbit, and the crew use the Space Shuttle Atlantis to reach it. After they travel to the comet and plant the bombs by drilling, the vessel is damaged, several crew members are seriously injured and the crew's contact with Earth is cut off. The comet is not destroyed; instead, it splits into two chunks. President Beck acknowledges Messiah’s failure and announces that special underground shelters have been built in limestone caves of Missouri.

The government will conduct a lottery to select 800,000 ordinary Americans to join 200,000 pre-selected scientists, engineers, teachers, artists, soldiers and officials. These people will be part of a worldwide effort to save mankind from extinction. Beck declares martial law as the lottery's selectees are notified. Jenny and Leo are both among the pre-selected. Leo gets permission to marry Sarah, to save her and her family, but on evacuation day, the soldiers have no record of the agreement to save Sarah's parents and sister. Sarah refuses to leave without them. Leo later manages to locate Sarah and her family on a gridlocked freeway. He takes Sarah and her infant sister to higher ground in the Appalachian Mountains. Meanwhile, as MSNBC is being evacuated by helicopter, Jenny gives her seat to a co-worker with a young daughter and goes to be with her estranged father.

A last-ditch effort to use all of Earth's missile-borne nuclear weapons to destroy the comets fails. The smaller of the two ("Biederman") hits the North Atlantic Ocean near Virginia Beach and Cape Hatteras, creating a megatsunami several thousand feet high. Jenny and her father die, along with Sarah's parents and millions of others on America's east coast.

The world then braces for the impact of the larger comet, "Wolf," which is predicted to strike western Canada and create a cloud of dust that will block out the sun for two years, killing all remaining plant, animal, and human life aside from that evacuated to the caves.

The crew members of Messiah decide to try to destroy the comet by flying directly into its path and exploding the remaining bombs on board. They will all die in the process, and have only enough time to say goodbye to their families. Messiah does succeed in breaking up "Wolf" into small pieces that burn up entering Earth's atmosphere, saving humanity. Afterwards, President Beck gives an inspirational speech in front of a reconstructed U.S. Capitol building, in which he urges the nation to begin its recovery and efforts to rebuild.

[edit] Cast

Robert Duvall as Capt. Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner
Téa Leoni as Jenny Lerner
Elijah Wood as Leo Biederman
Morgan Freeman as President Tom Beck
Vanessa Redgrave as Robin Lerner
Maximilian Schell as Jason Lerner
Leelee Sobieski as Sarah Hotchner
James Cromwell as Al Rittenhouse
Ron Eldard as Dr. Oren Monash, NASA
Jon Favreau as Dr. Gus Partenza
Laura Innes as Beth Stanley
Mary McCormack as Andrea "Andy" Baker, NASA
Richard Schiff as Don Biederman
Blair Underwood as Mark Simon, NASA
Charles Martin Smith as Dr. Marcus Wolf

[edit] Production

This section does not cite any references or sources. (March 2008)
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

As it was a Paramount/DreamWorks co-production, it would be decided that one studio handle domestic rights and the other international rights. Paramount would distribute in the USA, and DreamWorks overseas. International video distribution rights were originally with Universal Studios.

In 2005, Paramount's parent company, Viacom, announced its acquisition of DreamWorks, and completed it in early 2006. Around that time, Viacom split into two companies, the other being called CBS Corporation. CBS inherited Paramount's TV operations, now called CBS Paramount Television.

Today, worldwide video and theatrical rights to Deep Impact are with Paramount, while television rights are in the hands of CBS Television Distribution.

[edit] Reception

Deep Impact debuted at the North American box office with $41,152,275 in ticket sales. The movie grossed $140,464,664 in North America and an additional $209,000,000 worldwide for a total gross of $349,464,664.^[3]