Deep Impact (film)
| Deep Impact | |
|---|---|
 Original theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Mimi Leder |
| Written by | Bruce Joel Rubin Michael Tolkin |
| Produced by | David Brown Richard D. Zanuck |
| Starring | Robert Duvall Téa Leoni Elijah Wood Morgan Freeman Vanessa Redgrave Blair Underwood |
| Cinematography | Dietrich Lohmann |
| Edited by | Paul Cichocki David Rosenbloom Kurt Kustellson |
| Music by | James Horner |
| Distributed by | North America: Paramount Pictures International: DreamWorks |
Release date | May 8, 1998 |
Running time | 121 minutes |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75 million |
| Box office | $349,464,664 |
Deep Impact is a 1998 sci-fi-drama 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, and Robert Duvall. The plot describes the attempts to prepare for and destroy a comet, which is expected to collide with the Earth and cause a mass extinction.
Another "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 accurate,[2] and was better received by critics,[3][4] but Armageddon fared better at the box office.[5]
Plot
At a star party, amateur astronomer Leo Biederman (Wood) discovers an unusual object near the stars Mizar and Alcor, and alerts professional astronomer Dr. Marcus Wolf (Charles Martin Smith) at a local observatory. After discovering the object is a comet and working out its orbit, Wolf realizes that the comet will impact Earth, but he dies in a car accident on his way down from the observatory before he can alert the world.
A year later, MSNBC reporter Jenny Lerner (Leoni) researches the resignation of the United States Secretary of the Treasury and his connection to an "Ellie." She soon discovers that Ellie is not a mistress but "E.L.E.", an acronym for "extinction-level event". Because of Lerner's investigation, President of the United States Tom Beck (Freeman) announces the grim facts: The comet — named Wolf-Biederman — is 7 miles (11 km) wide, large enough to destroy civilization if it strikes Earth. He also reveals that the United States and Russia have been secretely constructing the largest spacecraft ever in orbit: the Messiah. They plan to send the Messiah to destroy the comet with nuclear weapons. Life changes drastically worldwide, and Leo and Lerner both become celebrities.
After intercepting and landing on the comet, The Messiah's crew plants the bombs into the comet's surface, but one crew member dies and another is seriously injured. When the bombs are detonated Messiah is damaged and contact with Earth is lost. The comet is not destroyed; instead, it splits into two chunks, one a mile and a half wide (named "Biederman") and the other six miles wide ("Wolf"), but both still world-threatening.
Beck acknowledges Messiah’s failure, declares martial law, and announces that governments worldwide are building underground shelters. The United States' national refuge is in the limestone caves of Missouri. The US government conducts a lottery to select 800,000 ordinary Americans to join 200,000 pre-selected scientists, engineers, teachers, artists, soldiers, and officials. Lerner, Leo, and his family are pre-selected, but Leo's girlfriend Sarah Hotchner (Leelee Sobieski) is not. Leo marries Sarah to save her family but the Hotchners are mistakenly left off the evacuee list; Sarah refuses to leave without them.
A last-ditch effort to use Earth's missile-borne nuclear weapons to deflect the comets fails. Leo returns home looking for Sarah, but her family has left for the mountains on a jammed highway. Using the Hotchner's motorcycle, he catches up with them, and Sarah's parents insist that Leo take her and their infant daughter to high ground in the Appalachian Mountains. Meanwhile, Lerner gives up her seat in an evacuation helicopter to a coworker with a young daughter. Biederman, the smaller of the two comet fragments, proceeds to impact in the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda. The resulting supersonic megatsunami quickly becomes hundreds of feet high as it heads inland. Leo and Sarah survive, but Lerner, Sarah's parents, and millions of others are killed along the Atlantic coasts of North America, Europe, and Africa.
The world then braces for the impact of the larger fragment, which will 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 those evacuated underground. The Messiah—previously believed lost by Earth—arrives at Wolf (after the crew says goodbye to their families for the last time) and enters a fissure in the fragment to blow itself up. Messiah's suicide mission breaks up the fragment into much smaller pieces that burn up in Earth's atmosphere, sparing humanity.
The film closes with Beck speaking to a large crowd in front of the damaged United States Capitol, in which he urges the nation to continue its recovery and efforts to rebuild.
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
- Dougray Scott as Eric Vennekor
Production
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.
Jenny Lerner, the character played by Tea Leoni, was originally intended to work for CNN. CNN rejected this because it would be "inappropriate". MSNBC, which was a new network at the time, is featured in the movie instead[6].
Reception
Deep Impact debuted at the North American box office with $41,000,000 in ticket sales. The movie grossed $140,000,000 in North America and an additional $209,000,000 worldwide for a total gross of $350,000,000. Despite competition in the summer of 1998 from the similar Armageddon, Deep Impact still made a sizable amount and was the higher opener of the two.[7]
References
- ^ "Release in 1998 USA". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2008-03-23.
- ^ Plait, Phil (2000-02-17). "Hollywood Does the Universe Wrong". Space.com.
- ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/deep_impact/
- ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/armageddon/
- ^ "Disaster Movies". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2008-03-23.
- ^ AP: MSNBC gets role in ``Deep Impact after CNN declines 30/4/98: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-19861267.html
- ^ "Deep Impact (1998)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
External links
- Deep Impact at IMDb
- Deep Impact at Box Office Mojo
- Deep Impact at AllMovie
- Deep Impact at Rotten Tomatoes
- Deep Impact -vs- Armageddon at Movie Smackdown!