Genre: Science Fiction/Thriller/Drama.
Studio:
Paramount/DreamWorks.
Production Company:
Paramount/DreamWorks.
Project Phase: In the Can.
Who's In It:
TΘa Leoni (Jenny Lerner); Elijah Wood (Leo Biederman); Robert Duvall (Spurgeon Tanner);
Morgan Freeman (President Beck); Vanessa Redgrave (Robin Lerner); Maximilian Schell (Jason Lerner);
James Cromwell (Senator Alan Rittenhouse); Ron Eldard (Oren Monash); Jon Favreau (Gus Partenza);
Laura Innes (Beth Stanley); Leelee Sobieski (Sarah Hotchner); Richard Schiff (Don Biederman);
Blair Underwood (Mark Simon); Mary McCormick (Andrea Baker); Dougray Scott (Eric Vennekor);
Denise Crosby (Vicky Hotchner); Charles Martin Smith (Marcus Wolf); Gary Werntz (Chuck Hotchner);
Alexander Baluev (Mikhail Tulchinsky); Bruce Weitz (Stuart Caley); Betsy Brantley (Ellen Biederman);
O'Neal Compton (Morten Entrekin); Rya Kihlstedt (Chloe.
Who's Making It:
Mimi Leder (Director); Michael Tolkin, Bruce Joel Rubin (Screenwriters);
Richard D. Zanuck, David Brown (Producers); Steven Spielberg, Joan Bradshaw, Walter Parkes (Executive
Producers); Deitrich Lohmann (Director of Photography); David Rosenbloom (Editor); Ruth Myers
(Costume Designer); Leslie Dilley(Production Designer); Industrial Light & Magic (Special Visual
Effects); James Horner (Musical Score).
Premise: Found by chance wandering through the night sky, the world discovers to its horror that a massive comet is on a direct collision course with the planet in two years. Faced with the probable extinction of civilization, the nations of the world launch a mission into space while the rest of the world watches, waits...and then prepares for the unthinkable.
Release Date: May 8, 1998.
Comments: Spielberg has long wanted to develop a project for TΘa Leoni. The first one planned for her at DreamWorks, Why Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn?, has fallen back into limbo.
The project is inspired by George Pal's 1951 sci-fi classic When Worlds Collide and Arthur C. Clarke's novel The Hammer of God. Production began April 21, 1997.
Rumors: Unknown.
Scoop Feedback:
June 1996 - March 1997...[Thanks goes out to 'Gazza', Brent Lynch, Joe Hanna, 'S-F Duff', 'witney', 'Butterbaby', Christian, 'Red Raider', 'H.B.' and the anonymous individuals who helped contribute to this page!]
May 15, 1997... Robert Duvall, Morgan Freeman and Vanessa Redgrave join the film. Duvall will play an old astronaut, and Freeman will play the US President. [Sent in by Joe Hanna, 'shippey' and Christian.]
May 20, 1997... This Dreamworks production wants to film in Seaside Heights, New Jersey in July 1997. The film company is debating the use of the shore community in place of using the amusement areas of Long Beach, California. The sequence to be filmed will consist of a tsunami striking the Coney Island section of New York. Surf's up! [Sent in by 'Proteus471'.]
May 25, 1997... Hans Zimmer may do the movie's soundtrack. [Scoop by 'lvtp'.]
July 8, 1997... Dougray Scott has been cast as TΘa Leoni's love interest in the film. He'll be a MSNBC cameraman. [Sent in by 'Pappy Pluto'.]
Extra, extras! Read all about them!:
A major traffic jam - complete with 1800 cars and some 4,000 extras - will be filmed in Northern Virginia, outside of Washington D.C, in mid-July. [Sent in anonymously.]
"My mom was lucky enough to be an extra. They will be having a meeting on tuesday the 8 in Manassas, Va. Then the actual shoot will be on monday the 14 and tuesday the 15. She was told to pack her car full of boxes and possesions to make it look like she was leaving town. They may also need her as much as 14 hours a day." [Sent in by 'JeffD202'.]
(According to another scooper, this scene takes place on the 234 Bypass, an as-yet unopened highway. The scene in question involves a massive car pile-up and thousands of fleeing motorists seeking to escape an slated impact at Virginia Beach. [Scoop sent in by anonymously and by 'allowilek'.]
Another scooper had this to say about the scene. "Traveling through the traffic are Elijah Wood (Leo Bannerman), Mary McCormick, LeeLee Stryzinski, and another dude. I worked both days as an extra on the set and can assure you that this will be a very dramatic scene, but giving more details will ruin part of the picture." [Sent anonymously.]
Of course, we don't want to spoil the surprise...so why are you reading this scoop? "Last Monday, (July 14) my brother and his wife were extras in the movie Deep Impact (I was hired too, but couldn't get the time off of work. Sigh.) Anyway, they filmed in Manassas, VA., about 30 miles south of Washington, D.C. on the new 234 bypass currently under construction. The extras were asked to bring their cars and load them up as if they had hastily packed them with anything they could fit. After filming the cars in a huge traffic jam, with people driving over the median and a few impromptu accidents (no word if the production will cover these), they were directed to leave their cars and run. The scene was described as taking place in Virginia Beach where the asteroid hits the water causing a massive tidal wave which ends up killing everyone trying to evacuate. Wish I could've been there." [Sent in by the one who survived - 'Brann'.]
"...Federal Transportation officials said to Virginia officials: 'You want to do what?'" [Scooped anonymously.]
"Filming began for about six days in Georgetown, here in Washington, about two blocks from the University. Friends working at a deli spotted Morgan Freeman having a cigarette on Wednesday the 16th of July." [Reported by 'McQueen'.]
"I was just in Washington D.C. for vacation, and while I was at the Lincoln Memorial I looked down around the Refelcting Pool an I saw several large rigs, an lots of people milling around. I decided to investigate further. Upon closer inspection these rigs had California plates, and the signs some of the people were wearing said 'Deep Impact'. Doensn't take Batman to deduce that something is going down in D.C." [Sent in anonymously.]
"Deep Impact is on location today (July 27th) in Rosslyn, VA, just across the river from Washington DC. They're filming scenes where people are seeking shelter in parking garages." [Submitted by Nathan.]
August 4, 1997... Straight from the set of Deep Impact comes this correspondent's report:
"Morgan Freeman's scenes were filmed over a ten day period. On 20 July 1997 Tea Leoni filmed a chase scene in Rosslyn going over the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
"On 27 July 1997, the same family that starred in the Manassas scenes (Mary McCormick, Leelee Sobieski, and some other dude) filmed all day in Rosslyn, Virginia. These scenes are supposed to take place in Richmond, Virginia and utilized over 500 extras as citizens, military personnel, and police trying to get everyone into a civil defense shelter (actually a parking garage). Later in the day, it was learned that the shelter itself would have to be evacuated and a scene was filmed showing the actors and pedestrians frantically trying to leave the shelter in heavy traffic.
"Industrial Light and Magic are doing the special effects for this film and were on location with the crew at the Manassas VA shoot.
"There were two days of filming in Manassas. The first one used 1,837 cars, and the second used only 500. This scene is near the conclusion of the film and is supposed to be six miles from the Virginia beaches. (A fake road sign was constructed for the 234 Bypass for the film.)
"Elijah Wood's character is named Leo Bannerman. The film starts out
with him taking pictures of the sky for his astronomy class and catching an image of the comet in
the far off distance. One other comment: the food on this set is QUITE good!
August 12, 1997... More scoops from those who's been on or near the sets of this picture keep rolling in:
"I just returned from the Beyond Hope Conference in New York...the Global Hacking Experience. During the Social Engineering Panel a few guys who claimed to have been extras in the film say they managed to cover up the NYNEX labels on the pay phones seen in a few of the Manhattan-filmed scenes for Deep Impact with 'Beyond Hope' stickers that look suspiciously similar to NYNEX labels.
"Also watch for an extra crossing the street in close proximity to one of the principal actors either wearing a 2600 t-shirt (yes, the 2600 magazine) or 2600 stickers plastered on his body somehow.
"The story about the stickers on the phone apparently was caught by someone on the crew. This person said he was with the crew and had been ordered to cover up all the Nynex emblems on the phone for the movie. After a pause of a few seconds, that real film crew person responded with something like 'Make sure you get every one.'
"This may be bull, but I have seen an awful lot of Nynex phones covered with these stickers around Manhattan in recent days. It would not surprise me." [Sent in by NYC's 'Zero'.]
"I didn't want to say anything because they (Paramount/Dreamworks) told us not to, but I've got to set this straight. Elijah Wood's name is LEO PETERMAN not what ever you have written down. I watched them film a scene, which according to one PA was supposed to be at the end of the film, in Manassas VA. I watched around five different shots and hours worth of takes. All in which, Leelee Sobieski is screeming Leo PETERMAN. I don't want to give away what the scene was about because it'll spoil the ending. I just wanted to set the names straight. Also Leelee's mother is played by Denise Crosby (according to my friend who stood next to her for hours during the Roslyn shoot)." [Scooped by 'thew'.]
"I recently took a vacation in L.A. and went on a studio tour of Paramount, where some filming will take place. I saw a finished set for the film. It's the surface of the comet. Not much, just a purple/green/grey rock-like set... it had holes for smoke and liquid to rise out. According to a worker, Freeman and Wood are the only major cast that will be on THIS set." [Sent in anonymously.]
And these scoopers report about one individual's website utterly devoted to taking pictures of the Deep Impact crew prepping for takes and filming their movie. We've visited the site and there are literally dozens of pictures to be seen; some are a bit grainy, but whoever this individual is, they're getting pictures from the set...the address is www.sta.cathedral.org/~nit_ram/". [Scoop sent in by 'Krymson' and 'yevlar'.]
One of the organizations in this film that seems to be a major player in the storyline is the Civil Defense Agency. [Scooped anonymously.]
Swingers cast member Jon Farveau and former Men Behaving Badly star Ron Eldard have joined the cast of the film. [Reported by 'Dr. Strangelove'.]
September 21, 1997... Hans Zimmer, the head of music for DreamWorks who also penned the score to their first release The Peacemaker, is likely to write the score for this one. [Info brought to our attention by 'Brently'.]
December 23, 1997... We're now told by another scooper that although Hans Zimmer is the musical director for DreamWorks, he is not providing the score for Deep Impact. Instead, James Horner, who Mimi Leder wanted to score The Peacemaker but couldn't get because of his commitment to James Cameron's Titanic, will score this film. [Brought to us by 'Clops'.]
A trailer is running in-front of Tomorrow Never Dies. In it, a voice-over by the President (Morgan Freeman) informs the world about the space mission of the Messiah to destroy the comet. The trailer concludes with the first deep impact of the comet crashing off the shore of North America and spawning the two-thousand foot high tsunami. The FX footage of the atmospheric shockwave of the impact was "stunning", one scooper told us.
January 10, 1998... Hans Zimmer is not scoring Deep Impact, as earlier reports stated. Instead, the job goes to James Horner (composer of The Devil's Own, Titanic, and the forthcoming Mighty Joe Young and The Mark of Zorro. [Thanks to James Furlong, reporting live from the Messiah bridge.]
March 15, 1998... On March 11, it was announced that an asteroid would impact the Earth in October, 2028. The news story not only made impacts around the world on the news wire, it also hit Paramount/DreamWorks intended marketing campaign for their upcoming film.
Sources tell us the marketing division at Paramount took the opportunity to cash in on the public's attention. A press kit was released immediately, showcasing 15 seconds of footage of the cometary impact in the film. What the clip shows is:
Of course, the next day NASA announced it had made an error. The asteroid data estimates were off by 570,000 miles -- still a close shave. [Thanks to our astronomical teammate 'Pozzo'.]
But one of our CA viewers caught the wave footage. "I was watching one of the Sunday news magazines on TV and they were interviewing co-producer David Brown regarding the recent news that a real life asteroid may impact Earth in 30 years. They showed a brief clip of that monster tidal wave as it hits Manhattan - taller than the World Trade Center, and as it hits, the buidings are snapped at the base like a stack of twigs. I cannot wait to see this on the big screen. It was incredible!" [Reported by 'freckles'.]
March 29, 1998... Finally! The new release one-sheet for the picture came out this past weekend. James, our man in the know, have us a description of what it looks like. The poster essentially contains the same image that we're running at the top, but has Elijah Wood desperately clutching his girlfriend superimposed over the comet's shockwave in the top half. The bottom half is a shot of the New York skyline, which looks identical to the one used for the ID4 poster. "A great poster," was how James described it. The new tagline on the poster reads "Oceans Rise. Cities Fall. Hope Survives." Opening day on May 8th, we be there! [Thanks to James@UVA for the comet watch!]
April 21, 1998... A big review of an advance screening for the film has arrived in CA's inbox. This is one of CA's most-anticipated films we'd like to see, so when this industry pro's assessment of the pic came in we were anything but not interested. If you decide to uncover the text below, be warned: there's MAJOR SPOILERS in the review. If you want to be surprised come May 8th, the scooper gave the flick 2 and one-half stars out of 4.
"The movie was a let down, and my Armageddon prejudices aside, I was looking foreward to the film. The first 45 minutes or so are very gripping. Young Elijah finds a mysterious object in the sky, and neither he nor his teacher know what it is, (for gods sake, my MOTHER would have known that it was a comet) so they fax a note over to the Kitt's Peak observatory, where a pizza-chomping star junkie types the coordinates into his computer. The part where he says 'Where are you in such a hurry to, little buddy', and then notices that it's path crosses Earth's orbit is VERY good. But then, 'stupidness' ensues: in his mad rush to drive off and tell everyone about the comet, he crashes his jeep into a semi. It's one of the lamest, most telegraphed scenes I've ever seen.
"Cut to: one year later. TΘa is an up and coming reporter, and she's just uncovered the whole ellie/E.L.E thing. The scenes where she talks to James Cromwell as he ominously loads his houseboat full of supplies is also well done. TΘa begins to realize that she's on to something bigger when a bunch of government thugs force her off the road (a la her hubby's X-Files) and take her to meet the pres are also suspenseful.
"Then she figures out what E.L.E means by playing around with Yahoo, then the press conference, yadda yadda. It is here that the movie looses it's focus. It starts jumping ahead months at a time, just when it poses some interesting questions: What would you do if the world would end in a year? If your neighbor was chosen to be saved, but not you? What if you were chosen, but not your parents since they're over 50? The emotional consequences are sacrificed for the sake of RAPID plot development.
"Well, this could get long, so to make things simpler, I'll just go over the 3 main stories: Beiderman, TΘa Leoni, and the Astronauts.
"ASTRONAUTS: This part really isn't done well. First off, they don't LOOK like Astronauts. They are never in uniform. Hell, even at liftoff, they're wearing Izod shirts. Robert Duvall is good, but everyone else is bland. The begining of the Comet-landing scene is good, but it quickly falls apart. When the sun 'rises' over the comet and all hell breaks looose, Mimi Leder really chokes. I didn't even realize that it was Jon Faverau who got killed until the next scene in the shuttle when I noticed that he was the only one missing. The whole scene ends up really botched. (PS- Why kill off someone as cool as 'Mikey' from Swingers when you've got has-been fuckups like Blair Underwood to toss to the wolves?)
"The scenes with Duvall and the now-blinded ex-ER paramedic guy are good. And the part where all the astronauts say goodbye to their kin via-video are good as well. But the whole last sequence where they kamakazi the comet is one of the most ANTI-climactic scenes in the movie. It never builds; it's like 'Ok..here we go...boom.'
"TEA: This was the best part, I guess just because it was given the most screen time and TΘa acted her part well. Yet it also isn't without it's problems. Vanessa Redgraves suicide isn't really set-up or explained well. And the whole competition thing between TΘa and her boss (the handicapped doc-lady from ER) isn't emotionally interesting, so there's really no payoff when TΘa gives her her place in the Arc. Her relationship with her father builds well, and their final scene on the beach is the only good emotional payoff of the movie. Too bad she and her dad had just roadtripped to St. Louis, they woulda made it.
"BIEDERMAN: The kid should have been given more screen time. For a kid who's face is on the poster, he doesn't do much. The marrage/relationship with the Helen Hunt look alike is really bogus: they hold hands once and we're supposed to believe that they're in love. This is the fault of the script, however, because the scene where Elijah is taken off in the bus and 'Helen Hunt' stays with her family is good as a result of the acting. The kids do a good job with what they're given, but they ain't given much. Elija gets a FRACTION of heroic screen time as he hops on a motorcycle, finds his girl, and then drives her and her little sister to safety, but it only makes you wish more of the story was about them. After all, they're the only ones who fucking live to see the credits! The girls parents are very good, and the scene where they just stare into each others eyes as everyone tries to run from the wave is touching. One of the biggest bullshit scenes in the movie is when Elijah announces to his parents at the Arc that he's going back for the girl. Their reaction is basically: 'Well....OK...but be careful'. The audience snickered.
"One important note: The concept of humor is REALLY lacking from this picture. The few attemps at jokes fall flat. The scene where one of Biederman's classmates tells him that 'He's gonna get a lot of sex' is very uncomfortably lame.
"Another interesting note: A recent article in The L.A. Times noted that Independence Day managed to wipe out most of the human race 'without eliciting any emotion more complex than "cool" '. Deep Impact is ten times worse. According to Morgan Freeman's painfully forced expositional speech at the end, TENS of MILLIONS of people died, but you never really see it.
"(As for Freeman's part, his character is given ZERO background or pathos. The only reason it works is because he's Morgan Freeman. He just sits around the oval office and broods the entire movie.)
"All in all, the movie is OK, but it is no where near the type of 'Emotional Drama' that you or the execs at Paramount and Dreamworks were hoping for.
"Why? Well, the script for one. The movie was only 2 hours long. If they had tacked on another 30 minutes (10 minutes for each storyline), the movie would have had much more detail and would have been much better.
"But the main reason? Mimi Leder fucked up.
"One of the ideas we're taught is that not only do entire movies have the classic '3 Act structure', but so do individual scenes. Leder was never taught this. Very few of her scenes are given the proper set-up, and almost every climax is botched. The film really makes you appriciate what a master Cameron is. There are a great many similarities between Titanic and Impact, but where Cameron creates magic, Leder merely fumbles the ball. On the other hand, if Spielberg had helmed the film like it was originally planned, I'm sure the film would have ended up great. She is the main flaw of the film. This would also explain why you like the film so much: you haven't had to see it yet through the eyes of some TV director.
"AND FINALLY: The funny thing is, I think Armageddon is going to be a far superior movie, not only from an action standpoint, but also dramatically and emotionally. Bay/Bruckheimer are only dealing with ONE storyline, and based on the trailers (the jingoistic Superbowl one and the long one with 'Hey Reggie! You and me baby! We goin to the top! Big time!'), it seems like Bay has captured in pictures the emotional detail that Leder failed to capture in words. The Bay/Bruckhiemer style can be cheesy at times, but their movie seems to touch on the whole Apollo 13 spirit much more than Deep Impact did. I dunno. Maybe. I just hope that DI doesn't piss people off too much so that they skip my boy Bruce.
"I guess it seems like I hate this movie, but I don't. 2.5 out of 4 stars. It's OK, but it AINT no blockbuster. I'd say that it would be VERY lucky to top $80mil. But then again, this is the country that made Flinstones and Anaconda a hit, so..."
['Weez' just made an impact.]
May 5, 1998... With Deep Impact opening this Friday, the people who run the EARTH Magazine website have posted an online science article about past and future asteroid impacts. They invite anyone interested in learning more about the subject (it'll happen again one day, bet on it) to visit their site. [Thanks to Sarah Simpson of EARTH Magazine for the notice.]
May 7, 1998... The reviews are coming in. Both Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter gave the film lukewarm reviews in yesterday's papers. THR gave thumbs up to the actors' performances and the cinematography but felt that Leder's directing take on things was "lacking." A more detailed review in Daily Variety also gave a similar assessment of the film: "Deep Impact will score some powerhouse B.O. as the first event picture of the summer, even as it leaves audiences ready for something bigger and better." [Reviews originally appeared in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.]
Here at CA, we've received just one review so far. " I just returned from the press showing of Deep Impact, and I must say that it was a very good film. The FX were very good, and the film was very interesting. My fiance told me that she enjoyed the film much more than she thought she would. None of the ensemble cast stood out, but the performances were very professional and appropriate for the characters and setting. The film has many sad moments, and is at times depressing, yet the movie is very interesting. I expect Armageddon to do better in the box office derby simply for being a more uptempo film, yet Deep Impact is not to be missed. 4 stars out of five." [Submitted by Gareth.]
The Tag Lines:
"Heaven and Earth are about to collide."
"Oceans Rise. Cities Fall. Hope Survives."
Official Web Site: www.deep-impact.com
Related Sites:
Deep Impact in D.C.! - Many photos of behind-the-scenes events have been taken by this site's creator/maintainer. Photos of the cast and crew abound, as well as providing a testament as to what it looks like on the other side of the camera lens.
Pete's Deep Impact Page - Another fine page showcasing DreamWorks latest, including a countdown clock showing the time remaining until Wolf-Biederman's impact. Created by Pete Miller.
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