Facts About The Movie Contagion (2011)

Apr 23

I think it would be pretty difficult to argue at this point in time, when the majority of us are staying at home during quarantine, that there is a movie more appropriate to watch than Contagion (2011, Warner Bros.) directed by Steven Soderbergh.

If you’re not familiar with it, Contagion chronicles a fictional story where an airborne virus rapidly spreads throughout the world, killing almost everyone who is infected in a matter of days, if not hours.

With the progression of the infection growing to the level of a pandemic, much like we are experiencing now, the world’s top scientists and doctors worked laboriously to find a cure.

I won’t ruin the ending for you, but I will use the remainder of this blog entry to share some interesting facts about the movie.

A Stellar Cast

Contagion boasts a seriously talented cast. In fact, many of the actors have indeed won awards in the past. Some of the top names include Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, and even Jude Law.

A High Score on the Tomatometer

Most moviegoers are unlikely to say that they agree completely with the score that their favorite movie holds on Rotten Tomatoes, or their “Tomatometer” score. When it comes to Contagion, this is no different.

The movie received an 84% Tomatometer score, which is quite good given the stringent standards of those who make up this score. On the other hand, the audience themselves has rated the film at 63% from more than 84,000 individual reviews.

Nearly $100 Million in Sales

Contagion fell short of the $100 million mark as far as ticket sales, coming in at about $75 million dollars in revenue.

This seems like a small feat in a world where the latest Star Wars movie may gross as much as a billion dollars, but back in the early 2010s when the film made its debut, this was considered quite successful.

Similarities in Virus Strains

The antagonistic virus in the movie, known as MEV-1, was believed to have contained pig and bat DNA. As we now know, the current nCovid-19 is also understood to have originated from bats and ultimately mutated into a viral form that could infect humans.

Eerily enough, some of the latest scientific reports and studies of the current day have theorized that the 2019 coronavirus could also infect other animals, namely our favorite pets cats & dogs, though the claims are unproven and only barely substantiated.

Viral Death Rates

The fictitious MEV-1’s death rate was stated to be as high as 20% in the film. This is substantially more deadly that the estimates we are hearing in the present day regarding covid-19.

However, the fictitious virus’ incubation period was said to be about 2 days. In fact, many of the movie-virus’ victims die within hours of contact with another infected individual. On the other hand, the coronavirus is believed to have an incubation period as long as 14 days.

Incubation period refers to the time frame within which a person may, in fact, be infected with the virus, but not show any symptoms at all. An extended incubation period is particularly worrisome, given that virus-carrying individuals will not know they are infected and will not necessarily know to be careful about passing the virus on to others.

Spoilers Ahead!

If you’ve gotten this far, I think you may be interested enough in the topic to have it be worth your time to watch the film in its entirety, if you haven’t already.

Nevertheless, I will be providing a quick synapse of how the movie-virus came to be.

The film shows a forest populated with bats that are displaced, ultimately flying over a pig pen on a farm. During the flight, a piece of half-eaten food falls from one of the bats’ mouths into the pen, where it is eaten by a pig. The pig meat is consumed and, as they say, the rest is history.

Fín…

Depending on the time at which you read this, you may know already how the covid-19 virus originated. As I write this, this remains an unknown, though more and more information is being released on a daily basis.

I hope you found this entry entertaining, and I wish you the best of health. I know we will get through this pandemic and come out the other side as a stronger, more united human race on planet earth!