Deep Impact (film)

For other uses, see Deep Impact (disambiguation).

Deep Impact
Original teaser theatrical poster
Directed by	Mimi Leder
Produced by	Steven Spielberg (executive producer) David Brown Richard D. Zanuck
Starring	Robert Duvall Téa Leoni Elijah Wood Vanessa Redgrave Maximillian Schell Morgan Freeman
Cinematography	Dietrich Lohmann
Edited by	Paul Cichocki David Rosenbloom Kurt Kustellson
Music by	James Horner
Production companies	Amblin Entertainment (uncredited) Zanuck/Brown Company
Distributed by	North America: Paramount Pictures International: DreamWorks Pictures
Release date	May 8, 1998 (1998-05-08)
Running time	121 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$75 million
Box office	$349,464,665

Deep Impact is a 1998 American science fiction drama film directed by Mimi Leder, and also written by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin, and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, starring Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximillian Schell and Morgan Freeman. It was released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures in the United States on May 8, 1998. The plot describes the attempts to prepare for and destroy a 7-mile wide comet, which is expected to collide with the Earth and cause a mass extinction.

Although Deep Impact had a greater scientific credibility, Armageddon fared better at the box office. Deep Impact grossed over $349 million worldwide on a $75 million production budget (making it a major financial success). Both films were similarly received by critics, with Armageddon scoring 41% and Deep Impact scoring 46% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot

On May 10, 1998, teenage amateur astronomer Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) discovers an unusual object near the stars Mizar and Alcor at a star party in Richmond, Virginia. He alerts professional astronomer Marcus Wolf (Charles Martin Smith) at a local observatory. Wolf realizes that the object is a comet, and calculates that it will hit the Earth, but dies in a car accident before he can alert the world (although his notes concerning the comet are flung out of the car before the crash).

A year later, MSNBC reporter Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni) investigates the resignation of the United States Secretary of the Treasury (James Cromwell) and his connection to an "Ellie". She discovers that Ellie is not a mistress but an acronym: "E.L.E.", for "Extinction-Level Event". Because of Lerner's investigation, President of the United States Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) advances the announcement of the grim facts: The comet—named Wolf-Biederman—is 7 miles (11 km) wide, large enough to destroy all life if it strikes Earth. The United States and Russia have been secretly constructing a spacecraft, the Messiah, in orbit. They plan to use the Messiah to transport a team lead by Captain Spurgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall) to the comet, so that it can be destroyed with nuclear weapons.

After landing on the comet, the Messiah crew members plant nuclear bombs 100 meters beneath the surface. When the bombs are detonated, Messiah is damaged and loses contact with Earth. Instead of being destroyed, the comet splits into two smaller rocks nicknamed "Biederman" (1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide) and "Wolf" (6 miles (9.7 km) wide), both world-threatening.

Beck announces Messiah’s failure, declares martial law, and reveals 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 aged 50 and under to join 200,000 pre-selected scientists, engineers, teachers, artists, soldiers, and officials. Lerner and Leo's families 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 two chunks of the comet fails. Leo returns home looking for Sarah, but her family has left for the Appalachian Mountains and are trapped on a jammed highway. Sarah's parents urge Leo to take Sarah and her baby brother to high ground; Sarah still does not want to abandon her parents, but they ignore her protests and send her and Leo to safety. Lerner gives up her seat in the last evacuation helicopter to her friend Beth, who has a young daughter. She instead joins her estranged father (Maximilian Schell) at her childhood beach house, where they reconcile and remember happier times.

The Biederman fragment impacts in the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda, creating an enormous megatsunami. Leo, Sarah and her baby brother survive. Lerner, her father, Sarah's parents, and millions along the Atlantic coasts of North and South America, Europe, and Africa perish. A scene is shown with the destruction of New York. The world braces for the impact of Wolf in western Canada, which will create a cloud of dust that will block out the sun for two years. This, in turn, will destroy all remaining life aside from that which has been evacuated underground. Low on fuel and life support, the crew of the Messiah decides to undertake a suicide mission with the remaining nuclear warheads. After saying goodbye to their loved ones by video conference, the Messiah reaches the fragment and enters a fissure to blow itself up, which breaks Wolf into much smaller pieces; these burn up in Earth's atmosphere, sparing humanity.

The film closes with President Beck speaking to a large crowd in front of the United States Capitol (which is under reconstruction), where he urges the nation and the world to continue their recovery.

Cast

• Robert Duvall as Capt. Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner
• Téa Leoni as Jenny Lerner
• Elijah Wood as Leo Biederman
• Morgan Freeman as Tom Beck, President of the United States
• Vanessa Redgrave as Robin Lerner, Jenny's mother
• Maximilian Schell as Jason Lerner, Jenny's father
• Leelee Sobieski as Sarah Hotchner
• James Cromwell as Al Rittenhouse, secretary of the Treasury
• Ron Eldard as Dr. Oren Monash, NASA, commander of the Messiah
• Alexander Baluev as Michail Tulchinsky, Russian Federal Space Agency, Orion nuclear engine engineer and nuclear weapons specialist
• Jon Favreau as Dr. Gus Partenza, medical officer of the Messiah
• Laura Innes as Beth Stanley
• Mary McCormack as Andrea "Andy" Baker, NASA, pilot of the Messiah
• Richard Schiff as Don Biederman, Leo's father
• Blair Underwood as Mark Simon, NASA, navigator of the Messiah
• Mike O'Malley as Mike Perry, Leo's teacher
• Charles Martin Smith as Dr. Marcus Wolf
• Dougray Scott as Eric Vennekor
• Kurtwood Smith as Otis Hefter, mission control director, Houston
• Denise Crosby as Vicky Hotchner, Sarah's mother
• Jason Dohring as Jason

Production

As Deep Impact was a Paramount/DreamWorks co-production, Paramount distributed it in the USA, and DreamWorks overseas. International video distribution rights were originally with Universal Studios. Deep Impact was also the first DreamWorks film to be co-produced with another major studio.

Jenny Lerner, the character played by Tea Leoni, was originally intended to work for CNN. CNN rejected this because it would be "inappropriate." MSNBC agreed to be featured in the movie instead, seeing it as a way to gain exposure for the then-newly created network.

Music

Untitled

The music of the film was composed and conducted by James Horner.

Tracklist

No.	Title	Length
1.	"A Distant Discovery"	3:59
2.	"Crucial Rendezvous"	3:58
3.	"Our Best Hope"	13:24
4.	"The Comet's Sunrise"	5:05
5.	"A National Lottery"	8:25
6.	"The Wedding"	4:00
7.	"The Long Return Home"	4:43
8.	"Sad News"	3:46
9.	"Leo's Decision"	3:08
10.	"The President's Speech"	4:29
11.	"Drawing Straws"	10:41
12.	"Goodbye And Godspeed"	11:34

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 $349,000,000. Despite competition in the summer of 1998 from the similar Armageddon (which cost almost twice as much as Deep Impact to make), Deep Impact was still a box office hit and was the higher opener of the two. Domestically, it became the highest grossing film directed by a woman and held that record for a decade until Twilight claimed the record in 2008.

The film had a mixed critical reception. Based on 51 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 47% of critics enjoyed the film, with an average rating of 5.7/10. Metacritic gave a score of 40 based on 20 reviews. Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times said that the film "has a more brooding, thoughtful tone than this genre usually calls for", however Rita Kempley and Michael O'Sullivan of the Washington Post criticized what they saw as unemotional performances and a lack of tension for the scenario.

Re-releases

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 Television Studios. Worldwide video and theatrical rights to Deep Impact are with Paramount, while American television rights are in the hands of Trifecta Entertainment & Media (inherited from CBS Television Distribution in 2009).

See also

• The Hammer of God - a novel by Arthur C. Clarke about averting an asteroid strike.
• Lucifer's Hammer - a novel by Larry Niven about comet strike.

External links

• Deep Impact at IMDb
• Deep Impact at the TCM Movie Database
• Deep Impact at Box Office Mojo
• Template:Amg movie
• Deep Impact at Rotten Tomatoes
• Deep Impact -vs- Armageddon at Movie Smackdown!