Armageddon (1998)

After discovering that an asteroid the size of Texas is going to impact Earth in less than a month, N.A.S.A. recruits a misfit team of deep core drillers to save the planet.

Director:

Michael Bay

Writers:

Jonathan Hensleigh (screenplay), J.J. Abrams (screenplay)

Stars:

Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck

Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 15 wins & 36 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Bruce Willis	...	Harry S. Stamper
Billy Bob Thornton	...	Dan Truman
Ben Affleck	...	A.J. Frost
Liv Tyler	...	Grace Stamper
Will Patton	...	Chick
Steve Buscemi	...	Rockhound
William Fichtner	...	Colonel Willie Sharp
Owen Wilson	...	Oscar
Michael Clarke Duncan	...	Bear
Peter Stormare	...	Lev Andropov
Ken Hudson Campbell	...	Max (as Ken Campbell)
Jessica Steen	...	Co-Pilot Jennifer Watts
Keith David	...	General Kimsey
Chris Ellis	...	Flight Director Clark
Jason Isaacs	...	Ronald Quincy

Storyline

It is just another day at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a few astronauts were repairing a satellite until, out of nowhere, a series of asteroids came crashing into the shuttle, destroying it. These asteroids also decimated New York soon thereafter. Then, NASA discovered that there is an asteroid roughly the size of Texas heading towards the Earth, and when it does hit the Earth, the planet itself and all of its inhabitants will be obliterated, worse, the asteroid will hit the Earth in 18 days. Unfortunately, NASA's plans to destroy the asteroid are irrelevant. That is when the U.S. military decides to use a nuclear warhead to blow the asteroid to pieces. Then, scientists decide to blow the asteroid with the warhead inside the asteroid itself. The only man to do it, is an oil driller named Harry Stamper and his group of misfit drillers and geologists. As he and his drill team prepare for space excavation, the asteroid is still heading towards the Earth. When...

---

Plot Keywords:

asteroid | astronaut | outer space | bomb | meteorite | 

---

Taglines:

Take the Ride of Your Life!

---

Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi disaster action, sensuality and brief language

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Russian Indonesian

Release Date:

1 July 1998 (USA)

Also Known As:

Armageddon

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles Theatre - 615 S. Broadway, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$140,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$36,089,972, 5 July 1998, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$201,573,391, 6 December 1998

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$553,709,788, 12 August 2012

Company Credits

Production Co:

Touchstone Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Valhalla Motion Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

151 min 153 min (director's cut)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The cuts last an average of about 1.5 seconds.

---

Goofs

When the space station is set rotating to give artificial gravity, the spin rate is too low for the apparent 1 g that the crew then experience.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
[Camera shoots past the moon to slowly zoom in on the Earth]
Narrator: This is the Earth, at a time when the dinosaurs roamed a lush and fertile planet.
[From behind the camera, a giant asteroid appears, speeding towards the Earth ahead of it]
Narrator: A piece of rock just 6 miles wide changed all that.
[Blazing through the atmosphere, the asteroid impacts with a spectacular display of fire and destruction]
Narrator: It hit with the force of 10,000 nuclear weapons. A trillion tons of dirt and rock hurtled into ...

---

Crazy Credits

Portions of the video of Grace Stamper and A.J. Frost's wedding are shown during the final credits.

---

Alternate Versions

British TV premiere on Channel 5 (March 2002) excluded the wide shot showing the damage caused to New York by the meteor shower.

---

Connections

Referenced in Saturday Night Live: Britney Spears (2002)

---

Soundtracks

La Grange
Written by Frank Beard, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill
Performed by ZZ Top
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Records, Inc.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products

User Reviews

An awesome movie

First and foremost, it was great to see Bruce Willis doing something that didn't involve him rolling on the floor, machine guns blazing.

I have to agree and disagree with some of the comments posted about this movie. While it wasn't original and overly creative in its theme, I have to disagree that the movie doesn't make you think. My advice to those who missed the message? Rent the movie again, and this time, pay attention. Really folks, what would you do if you had 36 hours to live. Where would you be? Most of us don't know the answer to this, and those of us who do, would like to forget.

All that aside, I think the special effects in this movie were spectular, and even the side-line characters were interesting. And, wasn't it nice to have ONE government official - thank you Billy Bob Thorton - that had a touch of humanity in him?

All in all this movie kept going...would I let the man I love get on that spaceship? That's another story.