Asteroid

Asteroid (1997)

The End Of The World Is Just Beginning.

With the discovery of an incoming asteroid, the government of America formulate a plan to destroy it. When the plan fails, all the world can do is wait. The main impact zone is revealed to be Dallas, Texas. Generally, the plot follows the lives and reactions of several characters: an astronomer, her father, her son, two firefighters from Kansas, two young doctors in Dallas and the heads of the government agency in charge of the situation.

Date of release
1997-02-16
TMDB
5.7 / 10 (51)
Runtime
2h 0m
Genres
Action, Science Fiction, Thriller, TV Movie
Director
Bradford May

Casting

Interesting facts

Asteroid is a 1997 NBC TV miniseries about the United States government trying to prevent an asteroid from colliding with Earth. The miniseries aired February 16–17, 1997.

Production

The idea for Asteroid originated in 1994, after NBC movies chief Lindy DeKoven saw news reports on the Shoemaker-Levi 9 Jupiter impact. Working with producer John Davis, they developed a story framed as an action-adventure drama. The promotional budget was $2 million, with a production budget of $19 million. Principal photography took 60 days, filming in Los Angeles and Denver. A further 60 days were devoted to post-production.

Entertainment Weekly included three detailed descriptions of the film's notable effects sequences:

"The pre-pulverized version of a Dallas business district, a 30-foot- by 50-foot model, required eight weeks to construct. Lined with small explosives, the set was built on a carpet suspended above a rolling contraption designed to simulate ground-rippling shock waves from an asteroid smash.

"The giant crater and fire-baked Dallas required a second intricate model that also took eight weeks to build. Made of wood, steel mesh, and fotex (a flameproof plaster), it’s wired to leak smoky liquid nitrogen. Shooting lasted for two weeks inside the crater, though this wasn’t live action; actors were filmed in front of green screens and later edited into about 80 shots."

"To create the dam busting and flooding of a street in Kansas City, the crew crafted a 12-foot-high, 15-foot-wide wall made of pyrocil, a featherweight substance that “looks like cement but breaks like eggshells.” Once the dam was detonated, 10 mortars blasted hundreds of gallons of water at speeds up to 150 mph.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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