Fire Down Below

Fire Down Below (1997)

Timing: 1:44 (104 min)

5.727/10
339

6.054/10
5921

5.2/10
20000

All about film

Video 1

Photo 14

Actors and characters

Release date

1997-09-05

Country

United States

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures, Seagal/Nasso Productions

Genre

Action, Thriller

Budget

$60 000 000

Revenue

$16 228 448

Website

Director

Félix Enríquez Alcalá

Actors

Steven Seagal, Marg Helgenberger, Stephen Lang, Brad Hunt, Kris Kristofferson, Levon Helm, Harry Dean Stanton, Mark Collie, Richard Masur, Alex Harvey
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Steven Seagal, Julius R. Nasso, Jeb Stuart, William S. Gilmore

Operator

Composer

Artist

Audition

Joseph Middleton, Shari Rhodes

Editing

Robert A. Ferretti
All team (87)

• The management of Warner Bros. wanted a typical action film in the style of all other movies with Steven Seagal, so they significantly re-edited the film as usual and cut out many scenes that better developed the characters and plot, as well as several significant action scenes for which the majority of the film's $60 million budget would have been spent.
• Initially, Bruce Willis was supposed to star in the lead role, and Jeb Stuart's script envisioned a drama with detective elements. However, over time, Willis left the project, the main role went to Steven Seagal, and screenwriter Phil Morton was tasked with reworking the script into an action film script with all the typical elements of Seagal's films.
• It took about two weeks to film the scene where Jack is chased by a truck.
• The screenplay was based on the recollections of screenwriter Jeb Stuart. While studying at college, he lived in the Appalachian region, where he worked as a carpenter, and where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was investigating the illegal dumping of toxic waste.
• To better understand her character's motivations, Marg Helgenberger visited several operating mines during filming.
• Marg Helgenberger's character's house was built on top of a hill because the film's producers liked the view from there. The landowner on whose property the house was built gave permission for construction and filming on the condition that it would not just be a set, but a real house, and that the house would become his property after filming was completed. Moreover, he eventually moved into the house himself.
• The church shown in the film (with a pond nearby) was specially built for filming, and then it actually burned down, as shown in the film. The fire was filmed in one take simply because there was nothing left to burn for subsequent takes.