FILM 2078: OUTBREAK (1995)

TRIVIA: When investigating the village in Zaire, several huts are burned down. This is the traditional tribal method for controlling the spread of an infection in many parts of the world. Food and water are left outside the entrance to the dwelling, and the occupants cannot leave. If several days (usually three or four) of these supplies are not used, then the dwelling is burned down to stop the infection from spreading.

(At around twenty-six minutes) In the film, it is said that "Motaba" was more deadly than the "Ebola" virus. Then they show a picture of the "Motaba" virus. The virus shown in the photograph is a strain of Ebola.

Betsy, the white-headed capuchin Monkey, also appeared on Friends (1994) as Marcel, Ross' pet. The monkey's role in this movie was spoofed by a poster showing Marcel as the star in the fictional movie "Outbreak 2: The Virus Takes Manhattan". This movie and Friends (1994) were Warner Brothers productions.

This film won a development battle with a similar viral-outbreak thriller project at Twentieth Century Fox called "Hot Zone". That film was going to be directed by Ridley Scott and star Robert Redford and Jodie Foster, but ran into script problems that threw it off stride. When Arnold Kopelson hired Ted Tally to work on his script, he liked the results so much, that he immediately sent it out to Harrison Ford; Ford declined, but then Dustin Hoffman and Wolfgang Petersen signed on to star and direct, and Warner Brothers greenlit the film for a 1995 release.

The film cast includes four Oscar winners: Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Cuba Gooding, Jr.

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