Asteroid (1997) on Netflix
A meteoroid hits the ground near Billings, Montana, and a tanker truck crashes. FEMA Director Jack Wallach inspects the fire, while Dr. Lily McKee finds two asteroids that may hit Earth.
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- Netflix2.4/5
- IMDb4.7/102,219 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
The fire that follows a crash outside Billings, Montana, is blamed on lightning, and FEMA Director Jack Wallach and his colleague Adam Marquez fly over the scene in a helicopter and rescue a married couple who were still in the area. Dr. Lily McKee, an astronomer at the National Observatory in Boulder, Colorado, watches a comet due to pass Earth on the Fourth of July and then spots what she takes to be asteroids in her photographs. She tells Jack and Adam that the comet has disturbed the orbits of two asteroids, Helios and Eros, and that both might strike Earth. Her assistant Max Jenson reports that Helios will reach Kansas City within 48 hours, and the President orders the city evacuated.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Asteroid (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To film the Kansas City dam burst, the crew built a 12-foot-high, 15-foot-wide wall of pyrocil, a featherweight material that looks like cement but breaks like eggshells; 10 mortars blasted water at up to 150 mph and 40,000 gallons in 15 seconds washed three cameramen away, ruining two cameras worth $80,000.
- Michael Biehn called Asteroid a dangerous production; some crew injuries were caused by a falling crane and a premature special effects explosion.
- The pre-pulverized Dallas business district was a 30-foot by 50-foot model that took eight weeks to build, lined with small explosives and set on a carpet suspended above a rolling contraption designed to simulate ground-rippling shock waves from an asteroid smash.
- The Dallas destruction sequence had to be shot twice: on the first run the roller hit a snag and "destroyed" only half the model, and it took another week to refurbish it for the reshoot.
- The giant crater and fire-baked Dallas required a second model, also eight weeks to build, made of wood, steel mesh and fotex, with two weeks of shooting inside the crater producing about 80 shots of actors filmed in front of green screens.
- The visual effects company Stargate Films used 40,000 gallons of liquid propane for fire, 2,000 gallons of liquid nitrogen for steam, and 500 black powder bombs.
- The idea for the miniseries originated in 1994, after NBC movies chief Lindy DeKoven saw news reports on the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact on Jupiter.
