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Outbreak | |
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Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Wolfgang Petersen |
Produced by | Gail Katz Arnold Kopelson Anne Kopelson Wolfgang Petersen |
Screenplay by | Laurence Dworet Robert Roy Pool |
Based on | The Hot Zone by Richard Preston |
Starring | Dustin HoffmanRene RussoMorgan FreemanDonald SutherlandCuba Gooding Jr.Patrick DempseyKevin Spacey |
Music by | James Newton Howard |
Cinematography | Michael Ballhaus |
Edited by | Neil Travis |
Production company | Punch Productions, inc. |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date | March 10, 1995 |
Running time | 128 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $50 million |
Box office | $189.8 million |
Outbreak is a 1995 American medical disaster film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and based on Richard Preston‘s nonfiction book The Hot Zone. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, and co-stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey and Patrick Dempsey.
The film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus, Motaba, in Zaire and later in a small town in the United States. It is primarily set in the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California. Outbreak‘s plot speculates how far military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread of a deadly, contagious disease.
The film, released on March 10, 1995, was a box-office success and Spacey won two awards for his performance. A real-life outbreak of the Ebola virus was occurring in Zaire when the film was released.
Scenes in “Cedar Creek” were filmed in Ferndale, California, where tanks and helicopters were a common feature of daily life during nearly two months of filming. Other locations used were Dugway Proving Ground and Kauai.
Outbreak topped the U.S. box-office list its opening weekend with earnings of $13,420,387, and spent three weeks at number one before Tommy Boy‘s release. The film, which grossed $67,659,560 domestically and $122,200,000 internationally, was a commercial success.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars, calling Outbreak‘s premise “one of the great scare stories of our time, the notion that deep in the uncharted rain forests, deadly diseases are lurking, and if they ever escape their jungle homes and enter the human bloodstream, there will be a new plague the likes of which we have never seen.” Rita Kempley of The Washington Post also enjoyed the film’s plot: “Outbreak is an absolute hoot thanks primarily to director Wolfgang Petersen’s rabid pacing and the great care he brings to setting up the story and its probability.”
Awards
- New York Film Critics Circle Awards: Kevin Spacey – Best Supporting Actor (Won)
- Society of Texas Film Critics Awards: Kevin Spacey – Best Supporting Actor (Won) – Also includes Spacey’s work in Se7en and The Usual Suspects
Watch the movie “Outbreak”
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