Sphere (1998 film)
| Sphere | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Barry Levinson |
| Produced by |
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| Screenplay by |
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| Based on |
Sphere by Michael Crichton |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Elliot Goldenthal |
| Cinematography | Adam Greenberg |
| Edited by | Stu Linder |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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129 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $73–80 million |
| Box office | $50.1 million |
| Sphere | ||||
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| Soundtrack album by Elliot Goldenthal | ||||
| Released | February 25, 1998 | |||
| Genre | Classical, avant-garde, modernist | |||
| Length | 35:36 | |||
| Label |
Varèse Sarabande, Cat. VSD-5913 |
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| Producer | Elliot Goldenthal | |||
| Elliot Goldenthal chronology | ||||
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| Soundtrack | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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| Filmtracks |
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Sphere is a 1998 American science fiction psychological thriller film directed and produced by Barry Levinson. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson. Sphere was based on the 1987 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. The film was released in the United States on February 13, 1998.
An alien spacecraft is discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, estimated to have been there for nearly 300 years. A team of experts, including marine biologist Dr. Beth Halperin, mathematician Dr. Harry Adams, astrophysicist Dr. Ted Fielding, psychologist Dr. Norman Goodman, and U.S. Navy Capt. Harold Barnes, are assembled and taken to the Habitat, a state-of-the-art living environment located near the spacecraft.
Upon examination of the spacecraft, they determine that it is not alien at all, but rather American in origin. However, its technology far surpasses any in the present day. The ship computer's logs cryptically suggest either a mission originating in the distant past or future, but the team manages to deduce that the long dead crew were tasked with collecting an item of scientific importance. Goodman and Halperin discover the ship's logs, which show the ship encountering an "unknown event" (thought to be a black hole) that sends the vessel back in time. Goodman and the others eventually stumble upon a large, perfectly spherical ball of fluid hovering a few feet above the floor in the ship's cargo bay. They cannot find any way to probe the inside of the sphere, and the surface is impenetrable; the crew finds it odd that the surface of the sphere reflects its surroundings except for humans.
They return to the Habitat, and Harry comes to believe that everyone on this team is fated to die. His rationale is that if they survive, their reports will be known by the spacecraft's crew on their future mission, and the crew will be able to foresee and avoid the black hole, thus avoiding the "unknown event" referenced in the logs, and not ending up where Harry's team has found it. During the night, Harry returns to the spacecraft and is able to enter the sphere, then returns to the Habitat. The next day, the crew discovers a series of numeric-encoded messages appearing on the computer screens; the crew is able to decipher them and come to believe they are speaking to "Jerry", an alien intelligence from the sphere. They find Jerry is able to see and hear everything that happens on the Habitat.
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