A spacecraft is discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, presumed to be at least 300 years old and of alien origin. A crack team of scientists and experts is assembled and taken to the ocean floor to investigate. However, the ship is not as it seems and when a giant perfect sphere is discovered in the cargo bay, things begin to fall apart.
Acting
Samuel L. Jackson's monologues while bedridden—peak unhinged.
Production
The underwater habitat still slaps; practical sets > CGI ocean.
Writing
Crichton's novel-to-screen chaos: three endings and zero coherence.
Director
Barry Levinson
Dustin Hoffman
Dr. Norman Goodman
Sharon Stone
Dr. Elizabeth 'Beth' Halperin
Samuel L. Jackson
Dr. Harry Adams
Peter Coyote
Captain Harold C. Barnes
Liev Schreiber
Dr. Ted Fielding
Queen Latifah
Alice 'Teeny' Fletcher
Marga Gómez
Jane Edmunds
Huey Lewis
Helicopter Pilot
Bernard Hocke
Seaman
James Pickens Jr.
O.S.S.A. Instructor
Michael Keys Hall
O.S.S.A. Official
Ralph Tabakin
O.S.S.A. Official
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film went through multiple reshoots and three different endings; the theatrical cut was allegedly assembled by studio mandate after test audiences rejected Levinson's darker version.
Sphere bombed so hard it killed the Crichton adaptation boom for nearly a decade—ironically, the same year as The Truman Show, which proved Levinson could actually direct when not drowning in underwater exposition.
US
