Deep Impact (film)

Deep Impact is a 1998 American science fiction disaster film directed by Mimi Leder, written by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin, and starring Robert Duvall, Ta Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell, Leelee Sobieski, and Morgan Freeman. Steven Spielberg served as an executive producer of this film. It was released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures in the United States on May 8, 1998. The film depicts the attempts to prepare for and destroy a 7mile 11km wide comet set to collide with the Earth and cause a mass extinction.

On May 10, 1998, teenage amateur astronomer Leo Biederman discovers an unusual object near the stars Mizar and Alcor at a star party in Richmond, Virginia with his schools astronomy club. His teacher alerts astronomer Dr. Marcus Wolf, who realizes that the object is a comet on a collision course with Earth. Wolf dies in a car accident before he can verbally alert the world.One year later, MSNBC journalist Jenny Lerner investigates the sudden resignation of Secretary of the Treasury Alan Rittenhouse and his connection to Ellie, supposedly a mistress. After interviewing Rittenhouse, she is intercepted by the FBI and brought before President Tom Beck. Lerner realizes that Ellie is not a mistress but an acronym E.L.E., for ExtinctionLevel Event. Due to Lerners investigation, President Beck makes an announcement earlier than planned the comet named WolfBiederman named after Wolf and Biederman, mistakenly assuming young Biederman was killed along with professor Wolf is headed for Earth. It ismiles 11km long, large enough to cause a mass extinction, and possibly wipe out humanity, if it hits the Earth. He also reveals that the United States and Russia have been constructing an Orion spacecraft called Messiah in orbit, in order to transport a team led by Oren Monash and including veteran astronaut Spurgeon Tanner to the comet, so that its path toward Earth may be diverted using nuclear weapons. ........

Source: Wikipedia