Actor Allusion: Stanley Anderson played the President in Bay's earlier film The Rock the demeanor of both Presidents is highly similar.
Backed by the Pentagon: NASA in this case. Hard to believe but it's true this did have NASA scientists as advisers and the movie was able to shoot in the NASA facilities. The only NASA place that isn't real is the control room which was designed for the film. Though the real Mission Control room does appear in the film. Also the Pentagon.
Breakaway Pop Hit: Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing", their first ever #1 hit.
William Fichtner is the poster boy for this page and plays Colonel Sharp.
Money, Dear Boy: The reason why why Billy Bob Thornton was in this movie, which he wasn't shy to admit as soon as his contractual obligation to advertise the movie ended. He did say, however, that he didn't think it was that bad of a movie.
Subverted. In an interview with Miami Herald, Michael Bay said "I will apologize for Armageddon", and explained how being forced to film the whole movie in 16 weeks caused the crew's performance to suffer, but later added on his website's forum that his words had been taken out of context and he actually was proud of the movie.
The orignal script did not include the romantic subplot between AJ and Grace, and instead had more emphasis on Truman. It was later added after the success of Titantic with teenage girls.
Denise Richards, Milla Jovovich and Robin Wright were all considered for the role of Grace.