The summary and note for this entry were completed with participation from the AFI Academic Network. Summary and note were written by participant Katelyn Cooley, a student at Oregon State University, with Jon Lewis as academic advisor.

The end credits include a “Special Thanks” to: The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of General Services and the City of Philadelphia.
       According to a 22 Jul 1981 LAHExam article, writer-director Brian De Palma based the film on “social events” of the previous two decades, including the Watergate political scandal during President Richard Nixon’s administration, the Kennedy assassination and the Chappaquiddick incident that implicated Senator Edward Kennedy in the 1969 death of Mary Jo Kopechne. De Palma told LAHExam that the story was written in the late 1970s, but he did not develop it into a screenplay until his plan to direct Prince of the City (1981, see entry) fell through and he subsequently sold the Blow Out story to producer and long-time collaborator George Litto. De Palma noted that although the Prince of the City script was credited to Jay Presson Allen and director Sidney Lumet, he worked on early drafts of the film with playwright David Rabe, and elements of his Prince of the City script appear in both the Lumet film as well as in Blow Out. According to De Palma, he was deceived by Prince of the City producers, who contracted with Lumet and Warner Bros. without notifying him. De Palma told LAHExam that after making Dressed to Kill (1980, see entry), he felt he had exhausted the “horror/suspense genre” and wanted to direct Prince of the City because it provided a different approach to story-telling that involved “real characters… set in a real situation.” Similarly, while developing the script for Blow Out, De Palma aimed to “flush out” the characters, building scenes at a slower pace than in his previous pictures by including more expository sequences. The director reportedly researched the role of “Jack” by consulting with his sound effects editor.
       According to HR production charts on 19 Dec 1980, principal photography began 1 Nov 1980 in Philadelphia, PA, but studio production notes from AMPAS library files stated the beginning of production was 11 Nov 1980. A 3 Mar 1981 HR news item announced that shooting had been completed at Burbank Studios in Burbank, CA. Studio production notes listed over fifty locations in Philadelphia, De Palma and Litto’s hometown, including City Hall, Penn’s Landing, the 30th Street police station, Fairmount Park, Reading Terminal, the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, South Street and Wissahickon Drive. Sets were constructed at downtown Philadelphia’s Port of History Museum.
       As reported in production notes, the film’s Liberty Day Parade was filmed with eleven cameras. One of the cameras was mounted on a custom-made helicopter rig that was imported from Norway. As well as featuring Philadelphia’s Sentry Post Militia and vehicles from the city’s police and fire departments, the scene required over 1,000 extras and twenty-five stunt drivers. According to various contemporary sources, including HR on 5 Jun 1981 and LAT on 7 Jun 1981, 2,000 feet of footage from the parade scene was stolen from a freight company truck in New York City on 15 May 1981. As stated in LAT, the negatives consisted of the film’s most expensive and elaborate sequence in the parade scene which depicted a jeep racing through City Hall and crashing into the window of Wanamaker’s department store. Hoping to avoid the estimated cost of $200,000 to reshoot the scene, De Palma and Litto sent a rough cut of the sequence to Technicolor, where a new negative was created from existing footage. In turn, the negative was developed into a professional-quality print, but the filmmakers were unsatisfied with the results and made arrangements with Philadelphia city officials for an impromptu reshoot. LAT reported that many of the Philadelphia collaborators had notes from the first shoot on hand, making the reconstruction run smoothly. The scene, which constituted less than one minute of screen time, required two days of filming, over 500 extras, aerial photography and the reconstruction of the parade. The stolen footage was fully insured and the reshoot did not delay the film’s 24 Jul 1981 opening.
       The scene for which the film is named, which depicts the “blowout” of a car tire and the vehicle’s crash into southeastern Pennsylvania’s Wissahickon Creek, involved the construction of a sixty-foot long, fifteen foot high dam, according to production notes. Due to the concerns of environmentalists, the dam was destroyed after a seven-day shoot and the filmmakers took responsibility for restoring the creek to its natural state.
       As noted in the LAHExam article, actors Nancy Allen and John Travolta had previously worked together with De Palma in Carrie (1976, see entry).
       According to another 22 Jul 1981 LAHExam article, Filmways Pictures planned to spend $9 million promoting the picture, including a four-page advertisement in trade publications that announced their marketing budget. LAHExam stated that Filmways campaign caused film industry insiders to speculate the company was in financial straights and the success of Blow Out would determine its longevity. Litto, who had recently been hired as Filmways’ chairman, reported that the film cost $18 million to produce and had already earned $6 million in “tax-shelter money” and an additional $6 million in pre-sales to foreign markets. Litto told LAHExam that the film only needed to gross $23 million with ticket sales, theater rentals and deals with television and cable networks to break even, so he was not concerned about the future of Filmways in regards to the picture, even though the company reported losses of over $66 million for the fiscal year 1980. Blow Out was also set to have a much larger opening than previous Filmways releases and was booked at 800 theatres nationwide.
       As stated in a 3 Aug 1981 LAHExam news item, the film grossed only $3 million in its opening weekend at 708 theaters, despite generally positive reviews, and Travolta was scheduled for a host of television interviews and press engagements to promote ticket sales. A 3 Aug 1981 HR article reported box office receipts of $4.5 million after the first week of the film’s opening and on 26 Aug 1981, a LAT news item disclosed that the film had grossed less than $14 million at the box-office.
       A 7 Aug 1981 DV article reported that Blow Out received “a condemned rating” from the U.S. Catholic Conference because of its nude scenes, violence and “pervasive air of immorality.”