Trivia / Deep Rising

• Accidentally Correct Zoology: Although the tentacles are initially identified as being Ottoia worms (which existed in the Cambrian period), there is a real life modern sea creature called the Bobbit Worm which behaves and hunts in a manner similar to them.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $45 million. Box office, $11 million.
• Dueling Movies:
  • With Alien: Resurrection. They came out from within a year of each other, and featured very similar plots.
  • As did Virus, the year after which also featured Cliff Curtis (Mamooli) among its cast.
• Follow the Leader: The scene where an unidentified saboteur (later revealed to be Canton) uses a virus to shut down all the ship's system clearly takes its lead from the similar scene in Jurassic Park where the park's systems get shut down.
• The Other Marty: Claire Forlani was cast as Trillian, but dropped out three days into filming citing Creative Differences with Stephen Sommers, and Famke Janssen eventually took her place.
• Referenced by...: Octalus made a cameo appearance in an issue of The Thanos Imperative.
• Release Date Change: Originally scheduled for a May 1997 release date, but was pushed back as Buena Vista had more hope for Con Air as their big action film that summer.
• What Could Have Been:
  • At one point, Harrison Ford was approached for the role of Finnegan. He declined, and the production budget was subsequently downsized.
  • In the original script, John Finnegan's catchphrase was "what now?" In the film it was changed to "now what?"
  • In the same script, we learn what actually drove the monster to the surface: an encounter with a Japanese submarine which disturbs it. It included an eerie extended sequence in which the sub explores the "valley of death" (filled with whale skeletons and sunken ships) in the trench before encountering the creature, which is only glimpsed before heading to the surface after the sub accidentally drills into it while attempting to collect some specimens. In the finished film, the "valley of death" is briefly seen during the opening credits from the monster's P.O.V.
  • Another difference in the early script is that Canton used an EMP bomb to destroy the electrical systems of the Argonautica, rather than a computer virus. This noticeably creates a plot hole in the finished film, as Canton still acts as though the ship's systems have been physically destroyed, something that would be all-but-impossible for a virus to do.
  • Canton was originally supposed to be an Evil Brit named Nigel Canton, while the Argonautica captain was a Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste Delcroix.
  • Believe it or not, this was originally intended to be a prequel to a King Kong remake! The final scene was meant to serve as a teaser for a reboot titled Kong Rising, with Word of God confirming the giant creature crashing through the island jungle was to be Kong himself.
• Working Title: Tentacle, which was changed in order to avoid giving away the twist about the monster too early.

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