:25:32
To create the gaping sinkhole...
:25:34
a hydraulically operated
collapsing street was constructed...
:25:36
at the Columbia Ranch in California...
:25:38
backed up by the facsimile of
the apartment building in New York.
:25:41
Since no permanent damage could be done
to the streets in New York...
:25:44
the area around the actual
apartment house location...
:25:46
was dressed with large,
jutting slabs of simulated asphalt.
:25:50
The final scene combined shots
from the New York location...
:25:54
and the sinkhole location
in California.
:25:56
The stunt cost $250,000 in 1984.
:26:16
"It seemed to me that prior
to the final battle...
:26:19
we had to demonstrate...
immediately and simply...
:26:21
just what they were going up against.
:26:24
The sinkhole effect showed how tough
and violent things could get.
:26:26
The studio didn't want me to do it.
:26:28
I was convinced
it was a great sequence...
:26:31
so I stuck with it."
- Ivan Reitman