It all started with a painting. On August 24, 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius exploded near present-day Naples, Italy. Tons of molten ash, pumice, and sulfuric gas were released, and the resulting debris buried the nearby cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis, and Stabiae for more than 1700 years. Although Pliny the Younger’s letters are the definitive […]
Confirmation that Armageddon and Deep Impact Got It Wrong
“Currently, there is no known asteroid with a significant probability of impacting Earth in the next century.” This reassuring news comes to us via NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), which last week conducted an exercise about a fictional asteroid on a collision course with the Earth. It didn’t go well for us. In conjuction with […]
On This Day: The Rains Came (1939)
As I write this, Hurricane Florence is hammering the coasts of North and South Carolina. Over the course of the next 5 days, local rainfall is expected to exceed 40 inches in places, leading to widespread, catastrophic flooding. On this day 79 years ago, moviegoers were flocking to theaters to see a drama that hinges […]
A Tale of Two Asteroid Movies
Vs. On July 1, 1988, Armageddon premiered in U.S. theaters. It would go on to earn more than $36 million in its opening weekend, on a budget of ~$210 million (all figures adjusted for inflation). Almost 2 months earlier, Deep Impact had earned more than $40 million […]
Places that Seem to Attract Disasters
A friend asked me the other day, “What city has been the site for the most disaster movies?” I immediately thought of New York City, with its tempting Statue of Liberty, but then I second-guessed myself with Los Angeles, home of the industry itself and thus convenient for filming. Let’s take a look at this […]