Hard Rain (film)

The production of the film was a collaborative effort among numerous film studios, one of which was the British Broadcasting Corporation. Christian Slater himself served as co-producer.[7] At one point, John Woo was attached to direct the film,[8] but he left the project to direct Face/Off instead and the project was taken over by Mikael Salomon.

The film was originally titled The Flood,[9] but it was changed because the film-makers did not want audiences to assume it was primarily a disaster film and not a heist-thriller. A massive, deadly flood the previous year from the Ohio River that caused millions in damages was still fresh in the minds of moviegoers also prompted the name change. However, the film still retained that title in some other countries.

The film was shot in Huntingburg, Indiana, where the film is set (in reality there is no major river or dam nearby, although there are two reservoirs near the town), as well as a $6 million set in an aircraft hangar in Palmdale, California where the B-1 Lancer bomber was manufactured, and some exteriors in Etobicoke, Toronto, Canada.

As of April 2016, upon speaking with the Huntingburg City Office, film historian Adam Nichols was informed of and shown a museum located upstairs in the city office where several props, costumes, media, and production stills are displayed featuring this film and the 1992 film A League of Their Own that was also partially filmed in Huntingburg.

About the ending, Morgan Freeman said: "I played a bad guy in [Hard Rain] and they showed it to an audience – and we're letting an audience tell us what to do now – y'know, and the audience said, 'Well, I don't want him – Morgan can't die!' And I was a thief. 'He should get some money'. We went back into the studio and re-shot it so that I didn't die and I did get some money."[10]

In retrospect Screenwriter Graham Yost said: “That was just supposed to be a western. It was basically a modern day western and it was just so expensive to do that it kind of lost its focus in a way, although Mikael [Salomon] did a great job.“[11]

Hard Rain opened on the Martin Luther King long weekend in 1998 earning fifth place with $7.1 million from Friday to Sunday[12] and $8 million including the holiday Monday.[13] In the end, the film made $19.9 million in the US on a $70 million budget.[14]

Due to its poor box office performance in the US, the film was released straight to video in most countries. In the UK, a 2004 showing on BBC One was very well received. The film gained a significant following in the video rental market.[15]

Hard Rain received polarized reviews, some very positive and some very negative. A positive review was on timeout.com favorably compared the plot of Hard Rain to writer Graham Yost's earlier and more financially successful project, Speed, and suggested that it could be considered a spiritual sequel to Speed.[16] Another review, on starpulse.com, praised the action scenes of Hard Rain yet criticized the plot, calling it "mindless" yet "entertaining".[17] One particularly negative review came from Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave the film one star out of a possible four and stated: "Hard Rain is one of those movies that never convince you its stories are really happening. From beginning to end, I was acutely aware of actors being paid to stand in cold water. Suspension of my disbelief in this case would have required psychotropic medications." Although he criticised the plot and some of the casting, he did praise the special effects.[18] On the TV show Siskel & Ebert & the Movies, he and his colleague Gene Siskel gave the film "two thumbs down".[19] Commenting on its commercial performance, Total Film called it the "biggest flop of 1998" but said it deserved to perform better because of its "fun tension-cranking moments".[20] Christopher Young's score was praised.[21]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 31% approval rating based on 45 reviews with an average rating of 4.5/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Hard Rain is an implausible heist movie soaked in disaster movie trappings."[22] On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 36 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[23] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[24]