Tales From The Box Office: Deep Impact Was The Lesser Asteroid Movie In The Summer Of '98
(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)
It happens every so often: two Hollywood movies come out around the same time, with a shockingly similar premise. There was "Top Gun" and "Iron Eagle" in 1986, "Dante's Peak" and "Volcano" in 1997, and in more recent times, "Hercules" and "The Legend of Hercules" in 2014. But the most infamous of these twin films battles took place in the summer of '98, when "Deep Impact" went up against "Armageddon" as the two asteroid disaster flicks battled it out for box office supremacy. Ultimately, Michael Bay's "Armageddon" came out on top.
It's not as though director Mimi Leder's "Deep Impact" was a failure — in fact, by many metrics, it was a gigantic success. It's just that it wasn't quite as big as Bay's bombastic spectacle starring Bruce Willis, which has had a longer lifespan in the years since. But still, Leder's film will always be remembered, right or wrong, as the lesser of the two asteroid movies that went head-to-head that year.
In honor of the 25th anniversary of "Deep Impact," we're looking back at the movie, how Disney may or may not have snagged the idea for "Armageddon" from Paramount Pictures, the unfortunate showdown it found itself smack dab in the middle of, what happened when the film hit theaters, and what lessons we can learn from it all these years later. Let's dig in, shall we?
The movie: Deep Impact
The project that became "Deep Impact" ultimately dates all the way back to the late '70s. It started when producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck came up with the concept for when they were contemplating a way to update the 1951 asteroid film "When Worlds Collide," according to a May 1998 issue of Starlog magazine (via Moviefone). The producers took the concept to blockbuster guru Steven Spielberg, but he had already obtained the rights to Arthur C. Clarke's novel "The Hammer of God." It had a similar premise, dealing with an asteroid set to hit Earth.
Brown and Zanuck joined forces with Spielberg anyhow, combining the two projects into one. The resulting story didn't quite resemble either of the original disparate pieces of source material. When the project was initially announced, it was credited as "Screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin, based on the film 'When Worlds Collide' and 'The Hammer of God' by Arthur C Clarke." Yet, when the film finally hit theaters, neither of those pre-existing pieces was credited at all. The story diverted enough over the years that it just became its own thing.
Spielberg had actually intended to direct the film personally, which would have made for a fascinating bit of alternate history. But his commitments to "Amistad" pulled him away. Yet Paramount was determined to get this thing made at that point. Enter Mimi Leder, who had directed episodes of "E.R." (which Spielberg produced), as well as George Clooney's "The Peacemaker." At a time when very few women in Hollywood were directing blockbusters, Leder was handed the keys to an $80 million summer spectacle that was, at one point, going to be directed by one of the greatest filmmakers to ever do it.
The dueling storylines
It's true that both movies did fight for the attention of moviegoers with the same general premise, but the resulting films were actually, radically different, all things considered. "Deep Impact" unfolds over a year and sees a comet headed for Earth. The U.S. government tries to keep the crisis under wraps until a reporter (Tea Leoni) uncovers the truth, forcing President Beck (Morgan Freeman) to announce plans to save a percentage of people in large underground bunkers. Meanwhile, a team of astronauts will lay explosives on the asteroid to try and send it off course. Part of it, ultimately, collides with the planet.
In "Armageddon," a big, mean asteroid with an attitude is headed for Earth with mere weeks for humanity to prepare. NASA determines that drilling into the surface and detonating a nuclear bomb is the best option. Roughneck ace driller Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) and his crew of friends — who are not astronauts — are tasked with heading to space to get the job done. Chaos ensues. Bay was all about the action. Leder? She cared a lot about the human element. In a pre-release interview, the director explained:
"If it did happen, how people would react, how the world would react to it. Would people panic? What sort of inner strength would it summon up in each individual? Would you say something to loved one you'd never said; would you renew your vows; would you kill yourself? What would you do? And those emotions are very interesting."
On the flip side, NASA literally shows "Armageddon" to managers in training so they can spot as many of the nearly 170 errors as possible. "Deep Impact" had an army of impressive science consultants to try and avoid such overt errors. Even the taglines tell a pretty complete story of how different these movies were from one another. "Deep Impact" went with, "Oceans Rise. Cities Fall. Hope Survives." "Armageddon," on the other hand? "Earth. It was fun while it lasted."
Questionable timing, questionable media narrative
There is always a question of exactly how two movies that mirror one another so closely could end up being released within weeks of one another. Well, it seems like Disney's Touchstone Pictures may have just flat-out copied Paramount's homework. In a 20th anniversary retrospective, Moviefone laid out a pretty damning claim that Bay did some sleuthing to actually see what Leder and her team were up to. Per the report:
"We spoke to someone who said that Bay told him that Bay and a confederate snuck into Paramount while the film was being edited and actually stole dailies so that the 'Armageddon' production team could see what the competition was up to."
So yeah, not great. While that can't be verified, one has to wonder how the army of screenwriters who worked on Bay's film (including a relatively young J.J. Abrams) arrived at some of those similar concepts. In any event, there may have been some shady shenanigans going on behind the scenes. Aside from that, the narrative in the media surrounding Leder was unquestionably questionable.
"Deep Impact" is a far more emotionally grounded, human story. There was a building narrative in the media leading up to the release that could be attributed to the fact that the movie was directed by a woman. Speaking with The Standard-Times, the director pushed back against that pretty hard.
"Now that's not fair. Yes, I'm a woman, and I bring my femaleness, and I bring me to the party. But you can't tell me that the man who directed 'Terms of Endearment' and the man who directed 'Schindler's List' and the man who directed 'Cinema Paradiso' – just name all the films that made you weep – and they were directed by men."
Regardless of the narrative, it was Leder's film that would step up to bat first helping to kick off the summer movie season of '98. First did not equal better though.
The financial journey
When the time came, Paramount and DreamWorks (who co-financed the picture) had every reason to be thrilled. "Deep Impact" hit theaters on May 8, 1998, with the $80 million-budgeted blockbuster easily taking the number one spot on the charts. The film pulled in $41.1 million, nearly ten times as much as the next-biggest film that weekend, "City of Angels" ($4.7 million). Perhaps most amazingly? It supplanted "Twister" to become the tenth-biggest opening weekend of all time up to that point. Bear in mind, this was years before "Spider-Man" would make the $100 million opening a thing.
Things looked exceptional as the weeks rolled on, with "Deep Impact" holding the top spot in weekend two, even as "The Horse Whisperer" and "Quest for Camelot" debuted. In the end, the film earned an impressive $140.4 million domestically to go with $209 million internationally for a grand total of $349.4 million worldwide. Any studio — particularly in an era when home video and cable brought in more robust secondary revenue — would gladly take those returns. It's just that this movie's success, in the end, was greatly overshadowed by "Armageddon."
Michael Bay's bigger, more expensive, less grounded blockbuster made less on its opening weekend to the tune of $36 million, which kicked off on July 1. But it held better in the weeks that followed and, in particular, did gangbusters business overseas. That movie wound up with $553.7 million worldwide, making it the biggest movie of 1998 overall. So sure, "Deep Impact" was an unquestionable success, but "Armageddon" was the biggest success story of that year, ultimately enduring in the public consciousness in a far more significant way over time. It even got a coveted Criterion Collection release at one point. "Deep Impact" did not.
The lessons contained within
Two things can be true at once: it's absolutely true that "Armageddon" was the bigger movie, and the movie that has had a longer lifespan. It's also true that "Deep Impact" was a big success, and one that was directed by a woman at a time when that simply wasn't happening all that often. Heck, Leder had the highest opening weekend ever for a female director until "Twilight" came along. That being the case, what happened after was the real crime and the real lesson here.
Leder directed "Pay It Forward," which bombed, and was pretty much put in director's jail for years. Bay followed his hit up with a high-profile flop in the form of "Pearl Harbor" and it didn't hurt his career one bit. "Not very many men make $350 million pictures," Leder said at the time in Variety. "So it's not about being a good woman director. I want to be recognized as a good director, period."
Eventually, Leder would be recognized as a great director, largely through her work in television on shows such as "The Leftovers" and "The Morning Show." Yet, she didn't make another movie until 2018's "On the Basis of Sex," nearly 20 years later. "'Deep Impact' made $350 million worldwide in 1998 when tickets were $8. On a non-holiday weekend, it made $41 million. It was huge. Then 'Pay It Forward' bombed and the scripts stopped coming. It was a very difficult time," Leder said speaking with the Director's Guild of America in 2013.
Luckily, Leder's talents have not gone to waste, but the fact that she had to wait so long to get another chance at a feature doesn't add up when directors who are men can suffer a flop and get right back in the saddle. I'm not saying "Deep Impact" was necessarily as impactful as "Armageddon," but a hit is a hit, and talent is talent. Leder should have been treated with the level of respect that comes with such success.