When Disasters Collide

The origins of the disaster movie go back to the early years of film itself. Through peaks and valleys, and general periods of stagnation, the genre grew stronger as the film industry progressed. Today, it’s one of the most profitable genres on movie screens today. Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Dante’s Peak, Volcano and When Time Ran Out; collisions like Meteor, Armageddon and Deep Impact; attack disasters like The Birds, Jaws, Bug and Swarm; and the airline disasters of the Airport films show the progression of the genre and the quest for new and unusual directions to take the disaster picture.

The films themselves offer fascinating tales of the history behind Hollywood movie making. In some cases, movie efforts came perilously close to telling the same story in two different movies. Such is the case with films surrounding volcanoes and asteroids. In the 1990s, dueling disaster movies fought for space on movie screen and in the media as they worked to compel moviegoers to plunk down their dollars to see a new kind of disaster. Dante’s Peak and Volcano competed with one another, while Deep Impact and Armageddon face off with competing asteroids. When Disasters Collide tells the story of a series of movies that faced collisions on and off the screen.