Friday 12 July 2013

In fiction

Dulles has been the backdrop for many Washington-based movies, starting shortly after the airport opened with the 1964 film Seven Days in May.

The 1983 comedy film D.C. Cab, starring Mr. T, Adam Baldwin and Gary Busey showed scenes outside of the main terminal at Dulles Airport.

The action film Die Hard 2 is set primarily at Dulles. The plot of the film involves the takeover of the airport's tower and communication systems by terrorists working out of a fictitious church on the west side of the airport (in the space north of Runway 12–30 and west of Runway 1L-19R). The film was not shot at Dulles; the stand-ins were Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and the now-closed Stapleton International Airport in Denver. An often-noted inconsistency is the existence of Pacific Bell pay phones in the main terminal (the telephone company that served Dulles at the time was GTE and the nearest PacBell territory was thousands of miles away). Other inconsistencies include the fact that Dulles appears to have its own airport police, when the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority had provided police service at Dulles for two years when the movie had been made; and the fact that there is no church anywhere close enough to be sitting on top of underground airport utility lines.

Part of the thriller The Package (starring Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones) took place at Dulles. However, the Dulles stand-in this time was Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

Dulles airport's terminal exterior

Portions of all three sequels to the disaster film Airport were filmed at Dulles: Airport 1975, with Charlton Heston, Karen Black and George Kennedy; Airport '77, with Jack Lemmon, Christopher Lee and George Kennedy; and The Concorde ... Airport '79.

Dulles has also served as a stand-in for a New York City airport, in the 1999 comedy, Forces of Nature. While set in a New York airport, the main terminal is recognizable.

Dulles is featured in several episodes of the television series The X-Files.

The airport is also shown momentarily in the film Body of Lies. In the scene, Leonardo DiCaprio mentions he is in "Dubai International" on the phone, although one can clearly see the iconic curved roof and concave entry windows on the upper deck of the Dulles departures area in the background behind him.

The terminal can also be seen in In the Line of Fire starring Clint Eastwood.

In the 2004 video game Need for Speed Underground 2, Bayview International Airport has a similar layout to Dulles Airport.

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