director. Production Principal photography on the film began shooting October 30, 1991 in Chicago with studio work at Sony Pictures Studios, Culver City, California and Los Angeles, California, along with the crash scene on location at Piru, California. It wrapped on March 20, 1992. The colossal staging of a crashed Boeing 727 airplane in December 1991, involved creating a complete location set at Piru, California. The derelict fuselage was blown up over a bridge and recreated river and river bed. After the failure of the first explosion, a second rigged explosive realistically recreated the crash scene where the plane is torn apart. Influences Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) is a film on a similar theme by Preston Sturges. Many reviewers referred to the obvious similarities between Hero and Sturges' screwball comedies. The classic Frank Capra film Meet John Doe (1941) was also cited as a model for Laura Ziskin who both produced and supplied the story for Hero. Reception Box office In the United States and Canada the film grossed $19.5 million. Internationally, it grossed $47 million, for a worldwide total of $67 million. Columbia lost $25.6 million on it. Critical response On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 67% rating based on 21 reviews. On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100 based on reviews from 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A-" on scale of A to F. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Haphazard and erratic, involving only in fits and starts, Hero's core is nevertheless so shrewdly and gleefully cynical about public heroism and the cult of celebrity it is impossible not to be at least sporadically amused and entertained." Roger Ebert noted: "It has all the ingredients for a terrific entertainment, but it lingers over the kinds of details that belong in a different kind of movie. It comes out of the tradition of those rat-a-tat Preston Sturges comedies of the 1940s, and when Chevy Chase, as a wise-guy TV boss, barks orders into a phone, it finds the right note." Desson Howe of The Washington Post said: "If a hero is one who perseveres and never gives up, this is one "Hero" that should have quit when it was ahead." Accolades The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: 2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes &