Michael Douglas reflects on the ahead-of-its-time virtual reality scene in ‘Disclosure’

“You’re the first person that has reminded me of it, so kudos to you,” Michael Douglas told Entertainment Weekly during a recent interview, proving that he doesn’t spend much time reading movie blogs or message boards. While the bulk of the conversation was about the 50th anniversary of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestwe knew we’d be remiss if we didn’t bring up the much-cherished, cheesy-in-retrospect virtual reality sequence from the 1994 thriller Disclosure.

“I haven’t thought about it,” Douglas said when we asked if he’s taken a moment to reflect on its prescience. The movie predated Oculus Rift and Meta Quest and Google Glass and Apple Vision Pro and all the other hardware used to shock your central nervous system into thinking you are falling off the top of a skyscraper.

Disclosureif you recall, was an erotic thriller hinged on a sexual harassment case with a twist: it was the middle-aged white dude played by Michael Douglas who was victimized by Demi Moore. The poster promised forbidden lust and the tagline, “Sex Is Power,” suggested edgy, adult themes. But the movie itself — directed by Barry Levinson with a Paul Attanasio screenplay adaptation of Michael Critchton‘s novel — was more of a corporate thriller. And the company at the center of it all was a Seattle-based geek squad called DigiCom.

The flick was a sizable box office hit, meaning plenty of people bought tickets looking for “the scene” between Douglas and Moore. (This was, after all, just two years after the saucy, Douglas-led Basic Instinct.) But sci-fi dorks in the audience were treated to another scene perhaps even more memorable.

We will do our best to succinctly summarize the lead-in to Disclosure‘s wacky trip through cyberspace, but you will be forgiven if you think this sounds made up.

Douglas plays Tom Sanders, a mid-level exec at DigiCom. (He runs the CD-ROM division.) He’s happily married and excited for an upcoming corporate merger. However, he discovers that his ex-girlfriend, Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore), is getting the promotion he wanted. She calls Tom to the office to celebrate, and starts putting on some moves. He stops it, only to later discover Meredith has accused him of sexual harassment. This leads to a countersuit, some corporate shuffling and a twist: Tom learns there is more to this than mere jealousy. A conspiracy is at play! (Donald Sutherland and the Malaysian government are somehow involved.)

To clear his name and find out what’s truly going on, Tom must jack in to DigiCom’s mainframe, so he puts on the VR helmet and away we go.

Tom then searches for incriminating files which are, naturally, encrypted. As such, he maneuvers through corridors, nearly falling into bottomless pits of cyberspace. (In a way, it’s a bit like Tron.)

Meanwhile, Meredith is hacking away at a different computer, deleting files, and she shows up for a cyberspace showdown appearing as a green wireframe grid with feminine curves and an immobile avatar face. It does not look good, even for 1994. It certainly doesn’t look threatening. It’s hard to know exactly what Levinson, one of the great directors of the era, was thinking here.

The scene concludes with a lot of digital images flying up on the screen and some positively insane synthesizer music from composer Ennio Morricone.

Clearly Disclosure was a movie that got some things right and some things wrong. Yes, VR would become more viable in a few decades, but not really for discovering corporate malfeasance schemes. Furthermore, the rampant issue of sexual harassment in the workplace would in time be taken more seriously, but the wacky twist of “actually, it’s the women doing it!” would not exactly prove to be common.

Reflecting on Disclosurehowever, Douglas remains proud of the work.

“I’m a current events kind of guy,” he said. “A lot of the films I did (kept) up with current events. That one was a little mischievous, with the abusive female boss. But pictures like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The China Syndromeand Falling Down — these were all (about) issues. Now that you mention the (virtual reality) aspect, you’re absolutely right.”

Of course, Disclosure was not the first movie to feature a virtual reality sequence. In addition to Tronsome early examples include The Lawnmower Man, Brainstorm, World on a Wire, Total Recall (maybe???), and anything on Star Trek involving the Holodeck. As far as Douglas looking zany with a headset, he got scooped by one year from our old friend up in Cabot Cove, Maine.

Yes, Jessica Fletcher beat Disclosure into cyberspace with the memorable Murder, She Wrote episode “A Virtual Murder,” which aired on Oct. 31, 1993.

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You can check out the original trailer for Disclosure below.