Synopsis

Best friends Bud and Doyle mistake a sealed environmental research facility for a shopping mall and enter just before its yearlong experiment begins. Locked inside with a team of scientists, the irresponsible slackers disrupt the carefully balanced ecosystem through their antics. As tensions rise and the project begins to fail, the pair must decide whether to keep causing trouble or help save the Bio-Dome.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film was inspired by Biosphere 2, the real enclosed ecological research project in Oracle, Arizona, where eight people lived inside a sealed environment from 1991 to 1993.

• Despite the connection to Biosphere 2, the movie was not filmed there. The exterior and dome locations were largely represented by the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, California.

• The comedy borrows several elements from the real Biosphere 2 mission, including concerns about food supplies, falling oxygen levels, interpersonal disputes, and the public fascination with people living behind glass.

• Jack Black and Kyle Gass appear together as Tenacious D, making the film one of the earliest on-screen appearances of the comedy-rock duo.

• The film earned $13.4 million in North America against an estimated $8.5 million production budget, but received extremely hostile reviews and later became associated with the "so bad it's good" cult-movie tradition.

• Pauly Shore shared the 1997 Razzie Award for Worst Actor for his performance in the film, tying with Tom Arnold.