Deep Impact - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Deep Impact or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Deep Impact

[jim]

In the film's final trailer, the blue background used behind the text graphics, is a slightly altered version of the background used for the opening titles of Event Horizon (1997), another Paramount Pictures movie.

[kristina]

When Marcus Wolf (Charles Martin Smith) is trying to send an e-mail about the approaching comet, we see the first few entries in his e-mail inbox. Two of the messages are from "cshoemaker arizona.unv", one of which has the subject line "101 Mir jokes". Carolyn Shoemaker and Eugene Shoemaker are well-known comet experts, credited as "comet advisors" to the movie.

[veronica]

Charles Martin Smith and Laura Innes appeared in And the Band Played On (1993).

[oscar]

The film cast includes four Oscar winners: Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall, Vanessa Redgrave, and Maximilian Schell; and one Oscar nominee: James Cromwell.

[ken]

Hidden amongst the cars and trucks in the traffic jam on the highway, near the end of the movie, is a truck that had water and food for all of the extras used in the scene.

[ivan]

Director of Photography Dietrich Lohmann was very ill during the production phase of the film, and the cast and crew found out he was dying from leukemia. A special dedication to Lohmann was put in the movie's closing credits, as he passed away not long after the film was finished.

[frederick]

In eerie imagery, the twin towers of the World Trade Center are the only structure still standing above sea level after the destruction of New York City, by the tidal wave at the end of the movie.

[sylvia]

A line was edited in the President's press conference scene. President Beck stated "Life will go on, we will prevail." Originally, President Beck said "Life will go on, we will prevail...THIS IS NOT Armageddon!" The producers later realized that the movie was going to be in box-office competition with the movie Armageddon (1998).

[lynn]

Morgan Freeman wanted his character (President Beck) to be wearing an earring. Director Mimi Leder turned him down. Later, we see the President addressing the nation from the oval office. His sleeves are rolled up, and one of Freeman's tattoos is showing. The director liked this. She felt it gave the President an everyman look.

[sandra]

After discovering the comet, one of the astronomers is killed in an automobile accident. This mirrors the real-life automobile accident death (July 18, 1997, in the Australian outback) of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker, who helped discover the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994 and was a source of inspiration for this film.

[jesse]

Morgan Freeman portrayed the President in this movie. In Olympus Has Fallen (2013), he portrayed the Speaker of the House, and in London Has Fallen (2016), he portrayed the Vice President. He is reprising his role of Allan Trumbull in Angel Has Fallen (2018).

[wallace]

The traffic jam scene was filmed on Virginia State Highway 234, a bypass that was under construction at the time. The roughly eighteen hundred vehicles used in the scene, came mostly from volunteers from the Washington, D.C. suburb of Manassas, Virginia. State Highway 234 is a primary state highway in Virginia. It runs from U.S. Highway 1 near Dumfries via Independent Hill, a bypass of Manassas, and Catharpin to U.S. Highway 15 near Woolsey.

[eli]

When the crew makes rendezvous with the comet, they are reported to have a twenty second delay in transmission of pictures to the ground. This is a distance of 3,728,120 miles.

[bernard]

Steven Spielberg was originally interested in directing, but stayed on as Executive Producer, hiring Mimi Leder to direct.

[sandra]

Landmarks in New York City that are hit in the tsunami sequence are in chronological order: the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center, the Washington Square Arch, Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Chrysler Building.

[harry]

The first cut of of the film had more scenes with Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) and Sarah Hotchner (Leelee Sobieski). However, in response to a poorly received sneak preview, these scenes were drastically reduced.

[kristina]

The first shot of the orbiting ship shows Baja California and northwestern Mexico in the background.

[kim]

During the school assembly, one student makes the observation "You're going to have more sex than anyone else in our class!" to Leo Biederman. This line was improvised by Jason Dohring, and the reactions from the other students are genuine.

[scarlett]

The movie came into being when Producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown proposed a remake of When Worlds Collide (1951) to Steven Spielberg, with whom they had worked on Jaws (1975). However, Spielberg had just optioned the 1993 novel "The Hammer of God" by Arthur C. Clarke, about an asteroid on a collision course for Earth, and humanity's attempts to stop it. They decided to merge the two projects together, and came up with this movie. Although the premise remained the same, the final screenplay for this movie was different enough from Clarke's novel, that he received no on-screen credit.