Deep Impact vs. Armageddon
About this episode
This episode explores the contrasting approaches of the films Deep Impact and Armageddon, both released in 1998.
In the summer of 1998, Hollywood delivered two versions of the apocalypse within eight weeks of each other, and the story of how that happened is almost as dramatic as either film. Deep Impact , directed by Mimi Leder and released on 8th May, had been in development since the late 1970s, tracing its origins to producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown's desire to remake the 1951 sci-fi film When Worlds Collide . The project was ultimately merged with Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's The Hammer of God , before Spielberg, occupied with Amistad , handed the director's chair to Leder. What emerged was a deliberately restrained disaster film, one less interested in the mechanics of impact than in the texture of grief: how ordinary people, politicians, astronauts, and estranged families face the end with or without dignity. With scientific consultants including comet co-discoverers Carolyn and Gene Shoemaker, and ILM's groundbreaking digital tsunami, the film earned genuine respect from the astronomical community and grossed a respectable $349 million worldwide on an $80 million budget. Armageddon , released on 1st July under Disney's Touchstone Pictures banner, was a…
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