Daniel Durante & Event Horizon: Inferno

The name alone would have been a great coincidence; then I started noticing the other similarities, and things got considerably stranger.

Event Horizon: Inferno expands the universe of the 1997 science-fiction horror film Event Horizon. Among its characters is a man named Daniel Durante. I am not claiming that I created this character, own this character, or that the character was based on me.

As far as I currently know, the shared name and similarities described here are coincidences. They are, however, some pretty entertaining coincidences, and the name is where the rabbit hole begins.

Annabelle

The fictional Daniel Durante's story includes an Annabelle Durante.

Meanwhile, I have an Annabelle in my own life: my godchild is named Annabelle. The difference is, she is much kinder and far more intelligent than what any artificial intelligence could be. She's a great kid and always a joy to be around.

The relationships are obviously completely different, and I wouldn't suggest otherwise. It's simply another peculiar overlap that caught my attention once I discovered the character.

Technology

The fictional Daniel Durante exists in a world of advanced technology, artificial intelligence, enormous ambition and humanity pushing beyond conventional boundaries.

The real Daniel Durante has spent much of his career in advancing technology, artificial intelligence, and has enormous ambition pushing beyond conventional boundaries. Oh, and the humanity thing.

I'm working with considerably less alarming infrastructure, and building things that probably shouldn't open portals to hell. However, an old friend of mine, Jack Parsons, would often say, "I'm not opposed to it."

Science fiction often takes questions technologists already wrestle with—artificial intelligence, autonomy, unintended consequences, systems behaving in unexpected ways—and asks what happens when we push them much further.

Event Horizon simply takes "unexpected behavior" a little farther than most production incident reports. I'm not claiming ownership of the character or suggesting that the creators of Event Horizon: Inferno knowingly used my life story. This page documents the similarities because they're unusual, funny and genuinely interesting to me. If I ever discover that there's an actual story behind the choice of name, I'd certainly love to hear it. Until then: Daniel Durante appears to have met Daniel Durante entirely by a gravitational pull.