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Outbreak
The movie poster for Outbreak
Directed by	Wolfgang Petersen
Produced by	Duncan Henderson Anne Kopelson Gail Katz
Written by	Laurence Dworet Robert Roy Pool
Starring	Dustin Hoffman Rene Russo Morgan Freeman Kevin Spacey Cuba Gooding Jr. Donald Sutherland
Music by	James Newton Howard
Distributed by	Warner Brothers
Release date(s)	March 10, 1995
Running time	127 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Outbreak (1995) is a suspense film starring Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey. The film was directed by Wolfgang Petersen. In addition, Outbreak features Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland, and Patrick Dempsey.

The film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus called Motaba. Its primary settings are government disease control centers USAMRIID and the CDC, and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California. Outbreak shows how far the military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread.

The film was released in March 1995 and proved a moderate box office success. The film was nominated for various awards but failed to garner any major award nominations. It also raised various "what-if" scenarios: media outlets began to question what the government would really do in a similar situation and the CDC has plans in case an outbreak ever does occur.

The film was shot at various locations in California and Hawaii. The locations used in California include Eureka, Ferndale, Los Angeles, and Pasadena. The lone spot used in Hawaii was Kauai, which was used to film some of the scenes that were supposed to be in Africa.

The film was inspired by a rival, never-produced virus outbreak movie, Crisis in the Hot Zone, an adaptation of Richard Preston's factual 1994 best-seller The Hot Zone.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Awards & Nominations 3 Box office 4 Cast 5 Trivia 6 External links

A virus similar to Ebola and Lassa is discovered in the African jungles in 1967 and kept top-secret. The discovery is covered up by destroying the mercenary camp where it is discovered with a fuel-air bomb, a specially-designed conventional weapon capable of very high explosive yields.

Twenty-five years later, it resurfaces in Africa again. Col. Sam Daniels (Hoffman), a virologist of the U.S. Army is sent to investigate the Motaba case with his crew. He and his crew contain the virus and return to the United States where he asks his superior, General Ford (Freeman), to put out an alert for the virus. Ford, who knows the virus is not new, tells Daniels that it is unlikely to show up. What neither of the men knows is that the host animal, a monkey, has been brought to the U.S. on a ship to be sold illegally in the pet trade. Jimbo Scott (Dempsey) bribes a guard at the shipping location and takes the monkey to Cedar Creek to sell for breeding. On the trip, the monkey spits in Jimbo's face, infecting him.

Once Jimbo arrives at the pet store in Cedar Creek, the owner of the store tells him he got the wrong sex but only after the monkey has scratched him, infecting him. Jimbo then takes the monkey and releases him into the woods of California. Jimbo starts to show signs of infection on his plane trip to Boston where he gets off the plane and kisses his girlfriend, infecting her. They are both hospitalized and Daniels' ex-wife, Robby (Russo), is called in to investigate this infection. While all of this is going on, the owner of the pet store in Cedar Creek begins to show signs of infection as well. All three of them later die. Robby investigates and concludes that everybody in Boston checked out all right.

While the techs in the hospital are running tests on the pet store owner's blood, a vial in a centrifuge breaks and splatters blood on Henery Seward (USAMRIID), infecting him. Later on, he goes to a packed movie theatre and coughs, expels, and exposes hundreds of citizens of Cedar Creek to the virus and thus starts the massive Cedar Creek outbreak. Col. Daniels learns of the infection and that it has became airborne. He wants to be sent there but is being sent to New Mexico, the site of an outbreak of Hantavirus. He disobeys orders and flies to Cedar Creek where he joins Robby and the rest of the crew. They work on isolating the town, especially the sick, and finding out where the virus came from. They find out about the pet store owner and believe that a host animal at the store may be carrying antibodies. They search the store and find a monkey; the monkey is already sick but they contain it and examine it. It is also apparent that a state of martial law has been declared in Cedar Creek as the army controls everything from rounding up the sick to setting a curfew.

While in Cedar Creek, several accidents happen. Casey's (Spacey) protective suit tears and he is infected with the virus. While treating Casey, Robby pokes herself with a dirty needle infecting herself. Several citizens of Cedar Creek try to escape in two vehicles and three men in the lead vehicle are killed when a helicopter fires at one of the trucks. The second vehicle, a family with children, is surrounded by armed troops wearing MOPP gear. A mystery serum, E-1101, is introduced to those suffering from Motaba. Daniels wonders what this is and administers it to the infected monkey obtained from the pet store. The monkey gets better but the citizens of Cedar Creek do not. This tells Daniels that E-1101 is not experimental and people knew about this virus beforehand. He confronts Ford about the serum and he says it was not revealed due to national security. Also the virus has mutated to become airborne and E-1101 only worked on the monkey because it was infected with the original virus not the mutated one, which means that the host monkey is carrying both strains of the virus.

Daniels then learns of Operation Clean Sweep, a plan by the U.S. military to destroy the town of Cedar Creek by bombing it, led by Maj. Gen. Donald McClintock (Sutherland), again using a fuel-air bomb. This leads him and Major Salt (Gooding) on a frantic search to find the host animal to save the town, Casey, and Robby. Daniels learns about the shipping location where the monkey was picked up from and finds out about the ship that brought it in. He flies to this ship and obtains a picture of the host monkey and broadcasts it on the news, when a mother watches and realizes her daughter plays with the monkey in their backyard, she calls the number that Daniels showed on the news. Daniels arrives at the family's house and asks the daughter to coax out the monkey, and then shoots it with a tranquilizer. He obtains the monkey and begins back to Cedar Creek to obtain antibodies for treatment. Once in Cedar Creek, Salt creates the anti-serum and Daniels learns Operation Clean Sweep is in progress and flies in the way of the bomber to stop it. He successfully stops the bombing by convincing the pilot of the C-130 Hercules assigned to drop the weapon to deploy over water and not the town. Ford then places McClintock under arrest for withholding information from the President. Daniels makes up with his wife and the town is treated for Motaba.

ASCAP Award

• Top Box Office Film (Won)

Saturn Award

• Best Science Fiction Film (Nominated)

NAACP Image Award

• Cuba Gooding Jr. - Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture (Nominated)

New York Film Critics Circle Awards

• Kevin Spacey - Best Supporting Actor (Won) - This nomination also included the film Swimming with Sharks, Se7en, and The Usual Suspects.

US Gross Domestic Takings: US$ 67,659,560

+ Other International Takings: $122,200,000

= Gross Worldwide Takings: $189,859,560

• Dustin Hoffman as Col. Sam Daniels
• Rene Russo as Robby Keough
• Morgan Freeman as Brig. Gen. Billy Ford
• Kevin Spacey as Casey Schuler
• Cuba Gooding Jr. as Maj. Salt
• Donald Sutherland as Maj. Gen. Donald McClintock
• Patrick Dempsey as Jimbo Scott
• Zakes Mokae as Dr. Benjamin Iwabi
• Malick Bowens as Dr. Raswani
• Susan Lee Hoffman as Dr. Lisa Aronson
• Benito Martinez as Dr. Julio Ruiz
• Bruce Jarchow as Dr. Mascelli
• Leland Hayward III as Henry Seward
• Daniel Chodos as Rudy Alvarez
• Dale Dye as Lt. Col. Briggs
• Johnny Kim as Seaman Chulso Lee
• Katie as the monkey.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The monkey shown as the host is a White-headed Capuchin, a species native to Central and South America. This conflicts with the setting of the original virus (Zaire, Africa).
• Katie, the white-headed capuchin Monkey, also appeared in the sitcom Friends as Marcel, Ross' pet. Additionally, Marcel was supposed to star in the fictional Outbreak 2: The Virus Takes Manhattan in the show.
• The Biological-Chemical protective suits that the soldiers wore were actually real and not props. The masks were also real, known as the M-17. The suit that Hoffman wore is now displayed in the Planet Hollywood restaurant in the Disney Village section of Disneyland Resort Paris.
• Outbreak is referenced in Chasing Amy when Banky Edwards says the line: "I'm telling you that chick is probably a bigger germ farm than that monkey in Outbreak".
• The film was also the inspiration for one episode of Clerks: The Animated Series, when Randal Graves fears that the monkey in the new pet shop next door will carry the deadly motaba virus and attempts to assassinate it.
• Outbreak was filmed in Ferndale, California, the same location that The Majestic, starring Jim Carrey, was filmed in.

• Outbreak at the Internet Movie Database
• Boxoffice information