Genre: Action/Science Fiction.
Studio:
Buena Vista.
Production Company:
Touchstone Pictures.
Project Phase: In the Can.
Who's In It:
Bruce Willis (Harry Stamper); Ben Affleck (A.J. Frost); Billy Bob Thornton (Truman); Owen Wilson;
Steve Buscemi (Rockhound); Liv Tyler (Grace Stamper); Peter Stormare (Lev
[The Cosmonaut] ); Will Patton (Chick); Jessica Steen (Astronaut Jennifer
Watts); Seiko Matsuda; Owen Wilson (Oscar Choi).
Who's Making It:
Michael Bay (Director); Jonathan Hensleigh, Robert Roy Pool (Screenwriters);
Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Bay, Gale Anne Hurd (Producers);
Jonathan Hensleigh, Jim Van Wyck (Executive Producers); Barry
Waldman (Associate Producer); John Schwartzman (Director of
Photography); Michael White (Production Designer); John Frazier
(Special Live Action Effects Supervisor); Pat McClung (Special Visual Effects Supervisor);
Trevor Rabin (Musical Score).
Premise: A series of asteroids are on a collision course with the Earth, and it's up to a team of crack demolition experts to blow up the biggest rock with a thermonuclear weapon. But to do that, they'll need to be given another crash-course: they are all oil digger employees with no space training whatsoever. If they don't reach the asteroid in time, or they're not prepared for the mission, millions of people will perish.
Release Date: July 1, 1998.
Comments: Asteroid disaster-themed projects are one of the hot properties in development during these final years of the millennium. With the similarly-themed Deep Impact and kissing cousin Galileo's Wake in development, expect to see the Earth get pummeled on the silver screen.
Rumors: Unknown.
Scoop Feedback:
January 19, 1997... Production is slated for a late May 1997 start. [Crew information and info supplied by 'SF-Duff'.]
March 11, 1997... Bruce Willis is being courted for the leading role. [Scoop sent in by Christian, 'H.B.' and Joe Hanna.]
May 4, 1997... "The script I read is 50's-60's sci-fi (Crack in the Earth) meets ID4. A collision between a comet and an asteroid, discovered by a group of astronomy students, sends the objects of doom hurtling towards earth. The first is 'the size of the Super Dome' and is destroyed by the SDI network the US secretly placed in space. But not completely, sending a large chunk careening into Singapore. The second meteor is a planet killer 'the size of Texas', and the plan du juor is to send a group of crack oil drillers specialized in deep drilling in super-secret space shuttles to the asteroid, land on its surface, drill 1000 feet to its core and insert a nuclear device, thus splitting the asteroid in half and making it miss earth. The head driller insists his roughnecks come with him, so the whole first half of the script is the wackiness that insues while NASA tries to train a bunch of beer guzzling, cigarette smoking roughnecks as astronauts (in two weeks, no less). Also has a wacky cosmonaut in the Mir Station (where the shuttles stop to refuel, and subsequently accidentaly blow up the space station, ensuring that our fun Russian friend is along for the rest of the ride) and lots and lots of deus ex machina. After many, many troubles, they dig the hole, insert the bomb, but the remote detonater gets busted, and the head driller has to stay on the rock to blow it. He does, the world is saved, yadda yadda yadda. Fairly weak script, but again, I may have seen an early copy. It will be interesting to see how Bay handles it." [Scoop provided anonymously.]
Jerry Bruckheimer will co-produce with Gale Anne Hurd's Pacific Western Productions. [Scoop by 'Sylvester'.]
This scooper reports that the effects and production designs have been worked on over the past year, and now the film will move forward for photography in May or June. [Scoop sent in anonymously.]
Another scooper who didn't want us to release his email address said that the Bay project should give Godzilla a healthy run for the action-adventure market in summer of '98. The pic may also go through a title change before all is said and done. [Scoop filed anonymously.]
May 25, 1997... Mark Mancina may score the soundtrack. [Sent in anonymously.]
July 29, 1997... The Armageddon unattached trailer has just shipped to theaters across North America and should start being seen within the next two weeks. We don't know what you should expect to see except for a "really big rock". [Scooped by Brent Lynch.]
August 4, 1997... Billy Bob Thornton, Owen Wilson, and Steve Buscemi have joined the cast. [Reported by 'Josh the Sandman'.]
August 5, 1997... This scooper's read a later version of the script and describes it as "The Rock in outer space". The scooper also goes on to note that with each rewrite the script gets better; that there's non-stop action for a wisecracking Bruce Willis; and that fans of producer Jerry Bruckheimer's films will see his signature on the film. Additionally, John Frazier (Twister) is handling the live action effects while Pat McClung (Dante's Peak) is handling the Visual Effects. [Scoop handed in by demo expert 'Oreo'.]
August 9, 1997... This scooper tells us that this pic will be the biggest of next summer, and name drops the film's cool asteroid-roving vehicles. "I've seen the designs for all of the cool equipment, including the space shuttles, and the Armadillos (tough -looking vehicles which they use on the asteroid's surface). The action sequence are going to be like none we have ever seen. I mean: action in space on a rock going 22,000mph. It'll be awesome..." [Sent in anonymously.]
August 19, 1997... Liv Tyler shows up in the film as Willis' daughter. Filming also got bumped back to a August 28th start date. [Scoops sent in by 'Tja77', 'andrey', Joe Hanna, 'st7i9' and anonymously. August 26, 1997... Casting is progressing nicely, thank you. The latest aquisition is Peter Stormare, who played one of the criminals in Fargo and most recently starred in The Lost World as Dieter Stark. This time around he'll be orbiting Earth when Bruce Willis and his crew of leathernecks come 'a'callin'; Stormare will play a Russian cosmonaut who has no choice but to join Willis' team when his station is destroyed. [Fed to us by Joe Hanna, Christian, 'Surfcity', and anonymously.]
Screenwriter Tony Gilroy (Dolores Claiborne, Devil's Advocate) was brought in recently to doctor' the script by humanizing the characters, or so we're told. The scooper also tells us that Gilroy is best known in Hollywood for having taken Devil's Advocate from development hell to greenlight status when Al Pacino committed to the writer's draft. [Deposited in our mail slot by an anonymous postal worker.]
September 9, 1997... Recently, some higher-ups associated with the production of the now-filming Armageddon have decided to re-shoot a large number of scenes. According to this scooper, this was due to a noticeable similarity in their spacesuit designs to that of the recently released Event Horizon. Scooper: "Oops!" [Sent anonymously.]
September 14, 1997... We've been told by an anonymous scooper that the Septmber 9th scoop is "absolutely not true. There was no delay of shooting at all, especially not because the space suits. The film is going ahead wonderfully -- there is an awesome scene recently shot in New York City, that will 'Rock' the audience next Summer.... The stuff on the asteroid itself will be stuff no audience has ever seen." [Sent in anonymously.]
On Wednesday the 10th Cenex Casting, Hollywood's largest extra casting agency, had a large call for extras to play news reporters. [Signed, 'an extra'.]
Thanks to an anonymous person who "read the final draft. ("Very solid. Tight,") they added), we've got some unconfirmed character names. [Thanks to anonymous.]
And here's some feedback for the Armageddon team from people who've seen the advance teaser trailer:
"Saw the teaser trailer before Hoodlum. Shows the space shuttle taking off, and comments about how pedestrian shuttle launches have become, until this one. Talks briefly about its mission - to land on a comet the size of Texas before it lands on us, then shows the title with a big explosion. Not spectacular, but enough to cause my nine year-old daughter to exclaim 'I'm not going to see that one!'. She's afraid of comets. So, I guess I just saved $4.50!!" [Sent in by 'freckles'.]
"I saw the trailer before Mimic this weekend. It shows some familiar Space Shuttles launching odd from the ground simultaneously and the voice over says something like 'You thought that Space shuttle launches were becoming commonplace. Well not this time.' And there is a short typical trailer voice-over description of why they must launch (to destroy an asteroid before it destroys us) but all you see are the shuttles launching, Bruce Willis' name, and and the title. The tag line is 'Sooner than you think' and it has the launch date of the movie - which I think was 7.8.98 ... " [Sent in by 'mbristol'.]
"We received the trailer a few days ago, and we instantly ran it in one of our digital sound auditoriums. Our first reaction- damn!!! The trailer itself is OK, featuring cool stuff like side-by-side shuttle launched, and it also name-drops Willis and Bay, but by far the coolest part is the sound. It's the coolest sounding trailer I've heard for a LONG time. At the very end, when there are rocks flying from front to back, it really sounds like you're there. If you get a chance to check this trailer out at a decent digital auditorium, do so. (It'll most likely be on G.I. Jane, since that's Disney latest release)." [Sent in by 'The Anonymous AMCer'.]
"I just saw the teaser and it lists the release date as 7-1-98. The most amazing thing about the teaser is the space shuttles taking off. Makes Apollo 13 look like child's play." [Sent in by 'frawress'.]
"The teaser was shown before AFO this weekend in Manhattan. Basically it consists of a number of shots of a NASA shuttle launching into orbit, with a VO saying, 'We've got to land on a comet... before it lands on us...' -- then BOOM, 'ARMAGEDDON: July 1997' " [Sent in by Woody Z.]
September 30, 1997... Canadian actress Jessica Steen is the latest to be added to the cast; she'll be playing astronaut Jennifer Watts. Her last film role was playing the prosecuting attorney in Trial & Error; past credits in SF include the role of Pilot in the TV series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future and Dr. Heller in NBC's Earth 2 series. More information about the actress can be obtained at The Jessica Steen Page. [Information sent in by George Cifrancis and Maggie Vanderschoot.]
October 13, 1997... Will Patton (The Postman, Inventing The Abbotts, VR.5) joins his Inventing co-star Liv Tyler in Armageddon. His character name is Chick, one of the oil drillers sent into outer space with the rest of the crew. More information about the actor and his past credits can be obtained from The Will Patton Website. [Sent in by 'Gouken' and anonymously.]
We've also been told Jeffrey Abrams wrote the latest draft of Armageddon, the draft that "everybody's raving about", our scooper tells us. [Reported anonymously.]
Eddie Griffin (from the UPN sitcom Malcolm & Eddie) appeared on Vibe and told the host he was shooting scenes for the picture on weekends. [Sent to us anonymously.]
This scooper tells us their thoughts on some of the FX work they saw for the picture. "Saw some in progress shots of the two shuttles (Freedom and Independence are the names, I think) approaching the planet killer. First of all, the shuttles design is very toyish and uninspired, and their approach to the asteroid makes it look like two fighter jets dog fighting a rock, very cartoony. The asteroid itself isn't based on any astronomical facts but looks pretty cool, long jagged spikes on the trailing edge of the 30' miniature." [Sent in anonymously.]
October 21, 1997... Adam Corolla, radio talk show host of Loveline will make a cameo in the film. Corolla announced his participation in the movie one night on his show. [Scooped by 'Chance'.]
November 4, 1997... People situated around Cape Canaveral, listen up! Word on the grapevine is that there'll be a casting call for extras soon for the picture. The crew is filming in town for the next couple of weeks. If we hear further about it (as in 'if the nice people who are making the show contact us and let us know the details'), we'll post the news up. [Distant early warning sent by 'The Anonymous AMCer'.]
November 6, 1997... "Saw a picture of one of the tank vehicles to be used in the movie. It looked INCREDIBLY similar to the mining/assult tanks used in Total Recall. Also, in addition to Billy Bob Thorton and Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Liv Tyler are also in town. One resturaunt was completly closed to the public while the cast had dinner (some reports say cast, some say just Bruce and Demi, I belive the first). Also, none other than Liv Tyler herself was at our theater this Monday, taking in a 7:00 screening of Gattaca, accompanied by a very crusty looking old guy who we all hope was not her boyfriend." [Scoop handed in by the Liv-infatuated 'marchett'.]
November 11, 1997... This fellow recently had the opportunity to visit the soundstage where Bay will film the interior of the asteroid scenes. The floor and ceiling are covered with hundreds of organic-looking stalactites and stalagmites, making it look like to the scooper "a plasterer's nightmare." [Sent to us by 'Mr. Baby Man'.]
Is Liv Tyler stuck up as one previous scooper reported? No way! claims this person. "I was an extra for the filming on Armageddon @ Kennedy Space Center. The Military shuttle mockup looks like a normal shuttle with two long engines along the top edge, and it is painted army green... It looks very Rock /Crimson Tide 'ish as there were scenes with gunships and even a treat with the Thunderbirds flying the missing man formation at the end of the movie. You're rumor about Liz I feel is incorrect, as she is kissing and hugging one of the returning astronauts, not worrying about "daddy" Willis as some of your rumors said." [Thanks to our anonymous friend.]
A worker at the Johnson Space Center writes to us that the crew brought a large amount of equipment in with them for the shoot, which led to some modifying of some of the test facilities on site in order to better facilitate movie filming. [Scoop sent in by 'janieceg'.]
"Ii work on the space shuttle and the crew of the movie Armageddon took over one of the bays where the space shuttle is processed for flight. A lot of film was taken under and around the oribter 'Atlantis'. The film crew was kinda in awe of the space shuttle and we were in awe of the film crew. Hats off to NASA for letting them film this, its a first." [Thanks to you 'Stimpy'.]
January 10, 1998... Trevor Rabin, composer of Con Air, will receive another Bruckheimer paycheck for doing the music for Armageddon. [Thanks to James Furlong.]
January 25, 1998... Michael Bay and Bruce Willis have been trying to slate a flight on NASA's infamous
'vomet comet' plant that simulates zero-G, but so far NASA hasn't approved their request. With filming
reaching its conclusion soon, the two have finally called in their big gun: former President George Bush.
While visiting the nearby Armageddon set, Bruce asked Bush if "he'd pull some strings," as co-star Jessica Steen
told the Columbus, Ohio newspaper The Dispatch when interviewed. Let's see if George still has some weight with his former employer.
|
The same scooper sent us this nifty shot of the t-shirt the cast is sporting around the set while filming the end of the world... [Sent in by George Cifrancis.]
February 8, 1998... [Thanks to 'Kevin_2010' for sending in additional character names.]
March 8, 1998... Is Jonathan Hensleigh is getting sole writing credit for Armageddon and Robert Roy Pool isn't? We need confirmation, people! [Dropped by 'TrapeZe'.]
April 7, 1998... It looks like television commercials for the film have started to appear. "A TV trailer was broadcast last night. This may be old news, but it was the first mention I'd seen of the movie outside of a theater preview. Wasn't impressed with the set-up of the TV trailer. About two-thirds of the spot was devoted to making the movie look like a remake of Apollo 13, warm fuzzies meet outer space. Last two scenes in the commercial show some of the action; a flight of odd looking space shuttles maneuvering in orbit and the top half of a skyscraper taking a nosedive into the pavement." [Submitted by 'chackba'.]
April 12, 1998... A rough cut of the film was screened last week, and our source tells us that the rough cut ran three hours, thirteen minutes in length! But buzz around Touchstone Pictures is that the film will be cut down to around 160 minutes in length -- still over two hours. [Thanks to our lightspeed scooper, 'C'.]
April 28, 1998... Not one, not two, but three Aerosmith songs are in this baby.
Remember the issue about screenwriting credits for this picture? This scooper tells us that the legal documents for the film indicate both Hensleigh and Pool will receive writing credits for Armageddon. Does that settle the matter with you now? "Of course there were all the behind the scenes writers like J.J. Abrams which you've mentioned and Tony Gilroy and Scott Rosenberg, mostly for Steve Buscemi's stuff, and Ann Biderman for Liv's stuff too." Ah, oh no... [Our thanks to 'the Big Cheese' for cutting us a slice of cheddar.]
May 28, 1998... Next time you're driving on the south 405 freeway at the 90 exchange in L.A., keep your eyes peeled for the Armageddon poster: a building has been painted to look like an asteroid slammed through the building. Our scooper reports that traffic on the 405 has been crawling ever since the poster went up. "Traffic goes from a brisk 70 mph down to 25-30 mph because drivers want to get a look. There have even been traffic accidents because of the ad. I heard on the radio that the city will force the producers to pull the ad," our scooper writes. [Car warrior Mark S. delivers your traffic report here on KTCA.]
June 28, 1998... Three days away from the release of the film we've got two postive reviews of it for you:
" In this summer season of big budget films not living up to their billing, it was very refreshing to see that Armageddon not only delivered plenty of action, but provided some good laughs in the form of Steve Buscemi. The film managed to take the age old story of an asteroid on a course to destroy all life on Earth, and make it interesting. Even with stock characters, and a basic plot, producer Jerry Bruckheimer knows what audiences want, and he delivers. The film is packed with fantastic FX, good action, and a loveable, yet unlikely bunch of misfits who are the last hope for the people of Earth. Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thorton, and Steve Buscemi all do a fantastic job with stock characters that could have easily been mishandled by other actors. The film takes itself seriously, but unlike Deep Impact, allows for a liitle bit of fun amist all of the chaos. This is the only film of the summer other than The Truman Show that I would want to see again, and I highly suggest Armageddon to any action film fan. It is a great summer escape film, and one heck of a joyride. This film does not have any pretenses about what it is supposed to be. It is a summer action spectacular, that knows what it is supposed to deliver, and does so accordingly. 4 stars out of 5."
[Review submitted by Gareth Von Kallenbach.]
"On Wednesday, June 17 I got to see the first New York screening of Armageddon at the Ziegfeld theatre in Manhattan. Let me say that this movie is awesome. It is going to be the blockbuster of the summer. This is Bruce Willis' biggest movie. The story as well as the entire cast was terrific. Steve Buscemi stole the movie again, just as he did in Con Air. The movie opens with the voice of Charleton Heston explaining how the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid. We then get to see the effects of an asteroid hitting the planet causing an explosion greater than hundreds of nuclear bombs. The Bruce Willis' name appears and then the main title. This special effect is spectacular. My friend sitting next to me leaned over and said, 'Wow, the opening credits is better than Deep Impact!' ,and I said, 'That was Deep Impact!'. So many explosions and action happens before we meet Bruce Willis' character. This is all in the first ten minutes!
"Bruce definitely has a hit on his hands here. He has redeemed himself. Michael Bay's direction is better and more focused, not just on the camera angles and movement like in Bad Boys and The Rock, but on the story and the relationships of the characters. This is a great American movie, a rollercoaster ride that you never want to end."
[Review by Jax Sarkon.]
After Its Release:
July 1, 1998... REVIEW #1:
"There is something called dramatic structure. All good stories employ it in some fashion and have for thousands of years to great effect. Not only does the entire story follow a three act structure, but the scenes within that story also follow a structure that consists of rising action, or building effect, climax, then falling action. That's what works, and that's what sucks you into a scene and makes the climax and falling action such a payoff. The director of Armageddon, Michael Bay, obviously has not learned this lesson yet.
"I went into the employee screening of Armageddon last night with great expectations. I had heard lots of good buzz on the film, much of it from 'Ain't-it-cool-news'. The first trailer (not the crappy one with the Aerosmith song, but the good one), sent chills down my spine every time I saw it. I'm serious. You see, these kinds of movies ALWAYS get me. Anything involving high heroism, saving the world while waving an American flag, etc, if done right, will get me every time. It's no wonder then that I was so excited about this. Braveheart affected me emotionally more than any other film had in a long time, when I saw it in the theater. I thought I would get the same effect with Armageddon...
"Well, I knew that Michael Bay was a music video director, but was he a commercial director as well??? The reason I ask this is because Armageddon is directed throughout exactly like a commercial. Commercials these days have gotten very sophisticated, telling stories in only thirty seconds. That's a feat, making somebody laugh at a funny little story in a commercial, and/or conveying large amounts of information in such a short period of time. They use techniques like showing a bunch of shots that give some information in rapid succession, with a character starting to say something onscreen and having the rest of his dialogue voiced over a bunch of different shots that continue the story.
"Armageddon is directed EXACTLY this way. Quite seriously, the ENTIRE film is edited and done in movie-trailer style, which is basically the same as commercial style. There is SOOO much going on all the time and the story moves so incredibly quickly that it's dizzying. This is not a good thing at all. It's a VERY serious flaw and it makes the film unaffecting. I'm not kidding, scenes literally come and go in almost the blink of an eye here, and half the time you have no idea what exactly really happened. The characters encounter problem after problem and I challenge you to tell me after you see the film what half of those problems really were. It's a very odd effect. Almost every scene in this film starts out IMMEDIATELY with whatever problem they are encountering, and those problems are resolved just as quickly an then - BOOM - jump right into another problem, etc. There is NEVER, NEVER, NEVER any kind of build-up at all to these scenes, and never any falling action. People will call this a film full of climaxes but that's not what it is... The definition of climax is that it's the very top of a CURVE... You have rising, building action, THEN the climax, then falling action. That's never what you get here... You go right to the 'climax' immediately every time without any hint or preview to what is going on. The result is a very odd detachment. You never have a sense of payoff because you never have to 'earn it' to get to the climax. It's pretty hard to explain but you will see when you see the film. Just imagine the story of Jurassic Park told in 20 minutes. I'm not exaggerating here in the slightest, the way Bay tells his story in Armageddon he could tell Jurassic Park in no more than 25 minutes. I'm dead serious. But when you just hit the 'high points' every time those points lose their effectiveness. The reason Jurassic Park is suspenseful is because you have a buildup to the climaxes. Imagine the T-Rex scene in Jurassic Park just happening at once, without ANY of the rising action we got of Nedry stealing the embryos, turning off the fences, crosscutting to the cars stopping, the 'where did the vehicles stop' line from Hammond, etc. All that rising action built the tension and made the payoff very suspenseful and exciting. There's no tension or buildup like that in Armageddon because he Bay never takes the time to set ANYTHING up. If Bay had directed Jurassic Park, and if he did it like he did Armageddon, you'd have none of that rising action at all. You'd just see a T-Rex jumping out of the fence and the result would be far lessened. That's the biggest problem in Bay's film. EVERY single scene, save on at the end, is like that. Things literally come and go out of nowhere.
"VERY SLIGHT SPOILER FOR EXAMPLE:
"One example is the 'I trust you' scene between Willis and Affleck. All the sudden, Affleck and company arrive, we have about 1 second (literally) of celebration (quite a payoff, eh?), and them saying 'we have 250 feet more to drill'. Next shot is them saying 'we have 25 feet to drill' and OUT OF COMPLETE AND UTTER NOWHERE they all start screaming and yelling, and we get mixed in with all the random, shaky, rumbling shots Willis' voice telling Affleck to pull out and stop, but Affleck refuses. Right away Affleck says 'Trust me'. Willis does and the scene is over as quickly as it began. The very next shot movies on to another crisis of some sort. It's that fast. No buildup, no payoff, no effect. That particular scene of 'trust' was so abrupt and quick that it rang just as hollow as the silly 'I trust you' scene in Batman and Robin...
"There's alot to be said for dramatic structure. It works. They had one heck of a concept with Armageddon, and a great cast. If they had cut out HALF of all the crisises in the film and spent some time building up to all the others, it would have been one GREAT movie. I'm serious, EVERYTHING they try to turn on or do - EVERYTHING - doesn't work. They could've done without most of that stuff and then, like all the greats (T2, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Die Hard), had just a few critical moments that actually were built up to and then climaxed, and then there would've been real excitement. Real payoff.
"On Harry's site he said that he cried when Thornton said 'They've been wondering why NASA was here for 30 years - now let's show 'em why.' When I read that in his review, I got a little teary-eyed. I love the space program, I'm very sentimental about that kind of thing and that comment made me slightly weep just from reading it. I thought the whole film would be this way... But the whole film is just one, big montage. It really is ONE BIG COMMERCIAL-STYLE MONTAGE. And when this moment came in the actual film it was out of NOWHERE. There was tons of unrelated shots and then all of the sudden a shot of Billy Bob saying that line (which was about a three second rapid trucking left shot) included in the montage. It came and went so fast it didn't even affect me at all. It didn't have time to. The great line of dialogue that I was waiting for, that I knew I would cry at even though it's ridiculous to cry at something so small... The 'moment' came and went in the blink of an eye. There was no buildup to make me feel even the slightest bit emotional about it. In fact, it wasn't a 'moment' at all. It was just a clip in a big, jumbled commercial, like everything else in this 'movie'. That's disappointing... extremely."
[David sent us his review.]
The Tag Lines:
"Heads up."
"Earth. It was fun while it lasted."
"It's closer than you think.
Official Web Site: www.movies.com/armageddon/index.html
Related Sites:
Pete's Armageddon Page - Crafted to showcase the Jerry Bruckheimer production -- plus, anyone who has a digital countdown clock ticking away the moments until the film's release is OK by us.
The Jessica Steen Page - A digital shine to the Armageddon co-star, designed and maintained by George Cifrancis.