"Deep Impact" released 1998

One of two comet/asteroid disaster movies to hit theaters, Deep Impact, opened May 8, 1998.  A seven-mile wide comet is on a collision course with Earth, and the world prepares for a mass extinction.

Steven Spielberg was executive producer.  It starred Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, Maximillian Schell, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell, Jon Favreau, Denise Crosby (of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame), and Blair Underwood.

The movie is based on the 1993 novel The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke.  

"Jurassic Park III" released 2001

The third installment of Steven Spielberg's awesome dinosaur movies, Jurassic Park III opened in theaters July 18, 2001.  It seems to be universally considered to be the worst of all the Jurassic Park movies, but it still did well at the box office, being the eighth-highest-grossing movie of 2001.

I find it interesting that it was released on the anniversary of Aliens (1986) because to me JPIII had a  similar plot.  People going into a hostile environment to save a child. 

Sam Neill reprised his role as Dr. Alan Grant and Laura Dern as Ellie, even though she had little more than a cameo.  William H. Macy and Tea Leoni starred as the Kirbys (from Enid, Oklahoma!), whose son has gone missing on Isla Sorna.  Despite the lame story line, the dinosaurs are cool!  The Spinosaurus and the Pteranodon get their time in the limelight.