Trailer
Plot summary
Dr. Ellie Arroway monitors radio emissions from space for signs of intelligent life, a search she began as a girl encouraged by her father, Ted Arroway, who died when she was nine. At the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico she meets Palmer Joss, a Christian philosopher. When the President's science advisor, David Drumlin, cuts her funding as futile, Arroway finds backing from S. R. Hadden, a reclusive billionaire, and moves her team to the Very Large Array in New Mexico. Facing eviction from the dishes four years later, she detects a signal of prime numbers from the star Vega. Drumlin arrives with a National Security Council group to federalize the site, and the team finds an embedded video in the signal.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Contact (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During filming, Francis Ford Coppola sued Warner Bros. and Sagan, who had died the previous week, claiming Sagan's novel was based on a story the pair had developed for a 1975 television special, First Contact; Coppola sought at least $250,000 in damages and an injunction against the film.
- CNN chairman Tom Johnson said that in hindsight it was a mistake to allow 13 members of CNN's on-air staff, including Larry King and Bernard Shaw, to appear in the film, because their presence "creates the impression that we're manipulated by Time Warner". CNN now requires such appearances to be cleared through its ethics group.
- Three days after the film opened in the United States, Warner Bros. received a letter from White House Counsel Charles Ruff protesting against the use of Clinton's digitally composited appearance; it made no demands, but called the duration and manner of that appearance "inappropriate".
- Sagan visited the set a number of times and helped with last-minute rewrites; filming was briefly delayed by the news of his death on December 20, 1996, and the film is dedicated to him, with "For Carl" appearing on screen at the fade.
- After Warner Bros. hired George Miller to direct in December 1993, Julia Roberts expressed interest in the role of Ellie and Miller considered Uma Thurman before casting Jodie Foster; he also approached Ralph Fiennes to play Palmer Joss and considered Linda Hunt as the US president.
- Roland Joffé and George Miller both planned to direct Contact before it was finally made: Joffé dropped out in 1993, and Warner Bros. fired Miller in 1995.
- Zemeckis cast Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss, and McConaughey dropped out of the lead role in The Jackal in order to take the part.
