Where to watch Armageddon (1998)

Trivia & production notes

• Disney greenlit Armageddon after a production president overheard screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin discussing his Deep Impact script at lunch and decided to create a competing asteroid disaster film.
• Nine writers worked on the script across rewrites and polishes, though only five received credit: Robert Roy Pool, Jonathan Hensleigh, Tony Gilroy, Shane Salerno, and J.J. Abrams.
• Bruce Willis took a significant pay cut to star in Armageddon as part of a three-picture deal to compensate Disney for the cancellation of the 1997 film Broadway Brawler.
• Michael Bay cast a younger actor in the role of Stamper instead of Sean Connery after meeting with actual oil drillers during production.
• Bradley Cooper auditioned for the role of A.J. Frost before Ben Affleck was cast in the part.
• In May 1998, Disney chairman Joe Roth added $3 million to the budget specifically for new visual effects shots of an asteroid striking Paris to differentiate the film from Deep Impact in advertising.
• At $140 million, Armageddon was Disney's most expensive film ever made at the time of production.
• The asteroid set from Armageddon was later borrowed by Home Improvement for a credit roll gag scene set in Wilson's basement, with Michael Bay requiring a six-month waiting period after the film's release before allowing its use.
• The World Trade Center destruction scene was censored from ABC broadcasts by April 2002 due to its similarity to the September 11 attacks.
• The Criterion Collection released Armageddon's director's cut on DVD and LaserDisc despite its mixed critical reception, with film scholar Jeanine Basinger, who taught Michael Bay at Wesleyan University, writing an essay defending its artistic merit.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Armageddon (1998 film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.