Last year’s disaster epic Geostorm reportedly underwent significant reshoots. The good news is, the film’s best scene was there all along.
Towards the end of the movie, Ed Harris pulls a rocket launcher from the trunk of his towncar, because of course he does. Director Dean Devlin confirmed that the rocket launcher scene was part of his original cut.
“That was actually mine,” Devlin said while speaking about his new film Bad Samaritan. “Ed did not participate in the reshoots.”
Harris has the scene stealing moment, but it’s also interesting to note that any scene in which he is featured is part of the original script. Maybe one day we will see the Devlin cut.
In Geostorm, a series of weather satellites orbiting Earth go haywire. Designed to control natural disasters, the malfunctioning satellites start causing supernatural disasters that only science could create.
The only person who can fix it is the man who designed it (Gerard Butler), while folks on the ground try to survive the floods and ice storms, rescuing whoever they still can.
Devlin still supported Geostorm in its release and the film had fans who enjoyed its over the top catastrophe and occasional wink-wink moments. Devlin said he’d hoped to emphasize the latter.
“For me, the movie was always intended to be like Independence Day,” Devlin said. Slightly tongue in cheek, a slight sendup of the trope. Nobody else wanted to do the sendup part. To me, if you take the sendup part out, all you’re left with is trope.”
To many viewers, the Independence Day tone still survived in Geostorm’s theatrical cut. It seems to be a movie that knows what it is, ridiculous disaster porn with over the top macho moments of heroism.
Geostorm is now available on home video.