The Day After Tomorrow

For other uses, see The Day After Tomorrow (disambiguation).

The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow theatrical poster.
Directed by	Roland Emmerich
Written by	Roland Emmerich (story) Roland Emmerich Jeffery Nachmanoff (screenplay)
Produced by	Roland Emmerich Mark Gordon
Starring	Dennis Quaid Jake Gyllenhaal Emmy Rossum Sela Ward Ian Holm Christopher Britton Jay O. Sanders Kenneth Welsh Tamlyn Tomita Arjay Smith Glenn Plummer Adrian Lester
Cinematography	Ueli Steiger
Edited by	David Brenner
Music by	Harald Kloser
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	May 26, 2004 (Kuwait); May 28, 2004 (rest of the world)
Running time	124 mins.
Countries	United States Canada
Language	English
Budget	$125,000,000 (estimated)
Box office	Domestic $186,740,799 Worldwide $544,272,402

The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American apocalyptic science-fiction film that depicts the catastrophic effects of both global warming and global cooling, and a storm from the systems that are about to wipe out all life on Earth and dawning a new Ice Age. It did well in the box office, grossing $542,771,772 internationally. It is the second highest grossing movie not to be #1 in the US box office (behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding). The movie was filmed in Montreal, and is the highest grossing Hollywood film in history to be filmed in Canada (if adjusted for inflation).

The Day After Tomorrow premiered in Mexico City on May 17 2004 but it was also shown to contestants on the reality television series Big Brother Australia beforehand, which is not classified as the premiere for the movie. It was released worldwide from May 26 to May 28 except in South Korea and Japan where it was released June 4 and June 5, respectively. The film was originally planned for release in summer 2003. The film made $110,000,000 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $652,771,772.

Plot

The movie opens with Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) in Antarctica with two colleagues, Frank and Jason (Jay O. Sanders and Dash Mihok), drilling for ice core samples on the Larsen Ice Shelf for NOAA. The ice shelf breaks off from the rest of the continent and Jason almost falls to his death. Jack presents his findings on global warming at a United Nations conference held in New Delhi, India, where diplomats from several countries including the Vice-President of the United States (Kenneth Welsh) are unconvinced by Jack's theory.

The idea, however, resonates with Professor Terry Rapson (Ian Holm) of the Hedland Climate Research Centre in Scotland. Two buoys in the North Atlantic simultaneously show a massive drop in water temperature, and Rapson concludes that the melting of the polar ice has begun to disrupt the North Atlantic current. He calls Jack, whose paleoclimatological weather model holds reconstructional data of the palaeoclimate change that caused the first Ice Age, to predict what will happen and when. Jack believed that the events would not happen for many years in the future; but he, Frank, Jason, and NASA's meteorologist Janet Tokada (Tamlyn Tomita) build a forecast model with his, Rapson's, and Tokada's data.

Soon after, across the world, violent weather causes mass destruction and chaos. A hail storm with football-size hailstones devastates Tokyo, Japan. A outbreak of tornadoes all over Los Angeles devastates the entire area including Los Angeles International Airport. The U.S. President (Perry King), authorizes the FAA to suspend all air-traffic over the United States due to severe turbulence, and an Avianca Boeing 707 plummets. As three RAF helicopters fly en route to the British Royal Family, they enter the eye of one of three massive hurricane-like superstorms, which causes a phenomenal temperature drop below −150 °F (−101 °C) that instantly freezes their fuel lines and rotors, causing them to crash. One of the crew opens a door and is instantly frozen.

Jack's son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in New York City for an academic competition with his friends Brian and Laura (Arjay Smith and Emmy Rossum). During the competition, the weather becomes increasingly violent with strong winds and torrential rains. Sam calls his father, promising to be on the next train home. However, the storm worsens even more, forcing subways to close due to flooding and closing Grand Central Station. An enormous tidal wave as high as half of the Statue of Liberty hits Manhattan, putting the island under several feet of water. Sam and his friends barely make it to the shelter of the New York Public Library. Meanwhile in Scotland, Rapson and his co-workers are trapped in their research lab by the deepening snow and the storm. They are last seen drinking scotch as the power supply fails.

Survivors in the Northern US are forced to flee to the Southern and Southwestern United States, with some Americans illegally crossing the border to Mexico. After advising the EOP of plans to evacuate half of the country, Jack sets off for Manhattan to find his son, accompanied by Frank and Jason. Their truck crashes into a snow-covered tractor-trailer just past Philadelphia, so the group continues on in snowshoes while connected to one another by rope. During the journey, Frank falls through the glass roof of a snowbound shopping mall. As Jason and Jack try to pull Frank up, the glass under them continues to crack, so Frank sacrifices himself by cutting the rope.

Inside the library, Sam advises everyone of his father's instruction to stay indoors. Few listen, and the small group that remains burns books to keep warm and breaks the library's vending machine for food. Laura is found to be afflicted with severe blood poisoning, so Sam, Brian, and J.D. search for penicillin in a nearby Russian cargo ship that drifted inland. While within the ship, the three are attacked by a pack of hungry wolves that presumably escaped from the Central Park Zoo. The eye of the superstorm begins to pass over the city with its −150 °F (−101 °C) instant freeze, and the entire New York skyline is shown to freeze from the top down. The three hurry back to the library with medicine, food and supplies, barely making it to safety.

During the deep freeze, Jack and Jason take shelter in an abandoned Wendy's, then resume their long walk and finally arrive in New York City, passing the frozen and half-buried in ice Statue of Liberty. They find the library nearly buried in a snow drift, but make their way in and find Sam's group alive. They signal for help and are rescued by a group of UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. As they leave Manhattan, they see people on the rooftops of many buildings with UH-60 Blackhawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters approaching to evacuate them. The movie ends with two astronauts looking down at the view of the Earth from the International Space Station, showing a majority of the northern hemisphere covered in ice, and a drastic reduction in the pollution content.

Cast

Actor/Actress	Role	Notes
Dennis Quaid	Professor Jack Hall	Government climatologist and father of Sam Hall
Jake Gyllenhaal	Sam Hall	Son of Jack Hall
Emmy Rossum	Laura Chapman	Love interest and classmate of Sam Hall.
Ian Holm	Professor Terry Rapson	Colleague of Jack Hall stationed in Scotland
Christopher Britton	Vorsteen	Associate of Jack
Arjay Smith	Brian Parks	Best Friend and classmate of Sam Hall
Dash Mihok	Jason Evans	Friend and colleague of Jack Hall
Jay O. Sanders	Frank Harris	Friend and colleague of Jack Hall
Sela Ward	Dr. Lucy Hall	Doctor, Wife of Jack Hall and mother of Sam Hall
Nestor Serrano	Gomez	Director of NOAA
Austin Nichols	J.D.	Rival turned friend of Sam Hall
Adrian Lester	Simon	Colleague and friend of Terry Rapson
Tamlyn Tomita	Janet Tokada	Hurricane specialist for NASA, colleague of Jack Hall
Kenneth Welsh	Raymond Becker	Vice President of the United States (later President of the United States)
Perry King	President Blake	President of the United States

Background

The movie was inspired by The Coming Global Superstorm, a book co-authored by Coast to Coast AM talk radio host Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. Strieber also wrote the film's novelization.

Shortly before and during the release of the movie, members of environmental and political advocacy groups distributed pamphlets to moviegoers describing what they believe to be the possible effects of global warming. Although the film depicts some effects of global warming predicted by scientists, like rising sea levels, more destructive storms, and disruption of ocean currents and weather patterns, it depicts these events happening much more rapidly and severely than is considered scientifically plausible, and the theory that a "superstorm" will create rapid worldwide climate change does not appear in the scientific literature. When the film was playing in theaters, much criticism was directed at politicians concerning the Kyoto Protocol and climate change. The film's scientific adviser was Dr. Michael Molitor, a leading climate change consultant who worked as a negotiator on the Kyoto Protocol.

The book "The Sixth winter" written by Douglas Orgill and John Gribbin published in 1979 follows a similar theme. So does the novel "Ice!" by Arnold Federbush, published in 1978.

Reception

The movie generated mixed reviews from both the science and entertainment communities.

• The online entertainment guide Rotten Tomatoes has rated the movie at 45%, with an average rating of 5.3/10.
• Environmental activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot called The Day After Tomorrow "a great movie and lousy science."
• In a USA Today editorial by Patrick J. Michaels, a Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and global warming skeptic, Michaels called the movie "propaganda," noting, "As a scientist, I bristle when lies dressed up as 'science' are used to influence political discourse."
• In a Space Daily editorial by Joseph Gutheinz, a college instructor and retired NASA Office of Inspector General, Senior Special Agent, Gutheinz called the movie "a cheap thrill ride, which many weak-minded people will jump on and stay on for the rest of their lives."

• Paleoclimatologist William Hyde of Duke University was asked, on rec.arts.sf.written, whether he would be seeing the film; he responded that he would not unless someone were to offer him $100. Other readers of the newsgroup took this as a challenge, and (despite Hyde's protests) raised the necessary funds. Hyde's review, which criticized the film's portrayal of weather phenomena that stopped at national borders, and finished by saying that it was "to climate science as Frankenstein is to heart transplant surgery", was quoted in New Scientist.
• In 2008, Yahoo! Movies listed The Day After Tomorrow as one of Top 10 Scientifically Inaccurate Movies.
• The film was criticized for depicting several different meteorological phenomena occurring over the course of hours, instead of the more plausible time frame of several decades or centuries.

Over its 4-day Memorial Day opening, the film grossed $85,807,341, however it still ranked #2 for the weekend, behind Shrek 2's $95,578,365 4-day tally, however The Day After Tomorrow led the per-theater average chart with a 4-day average of $25,053, compared to Shrek 2's 4-day average of $22,633. At the end of its box office run, it grossed $186,740,799. Its worldwide gross was $542,771,772.

Controversy

There was some controversy regarding the casting of Kenneth Welsh as the Vice-President of the United States due to his striking physical resemblance to Dick Cheney, who at the time was the real Vice-President. Roland Emmerich later confirmed that he deliberately chose Welsh for that very reason. Emmerich stated that the characters of the President and Vice-President in the film were intended to be a not-so-subtle criticism of the environmental policies of the Presidency of George W. Bush. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the film.

In response to accusations of insensitivity by including scenes of New York City being destroyed, less than three years after the September 11th attacks, Emmerich claims that it was necessary to depict the event as a means to showcase the increased unity people now have when facing a disaster, because of 9/11.

A number of scientists were critical of the scientific aspects of the film:

• Dan Schrag, a paleoclimatologist and professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University expressed both support and concern about the film, stating that "On the one hand, I'm glad that there's a big-budget movie about something as critical as climate change. On the other, I'm concerned that people will see these over-the-top effects and think the whole thing is a joke... We are indeed experimenting with the Earth in a way that hasn't been done for millions of years. But you're not going to see another ice age -- at least not like that."
• Marshall Shepherd, a research meteorologist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center expressed similar sentiments, stating that "I'm heartened that there's a movie addressing real climate issues. But as for the science of the movie, I'd give it a D minus or an F. And I'd be concerned if the movie was made to advance a political agenda."
• Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria said, "It's the Towering Inferno of climate science movies, but I'm not losing any sleep over a new ice age, because it's impossible."

DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases

Releases

• It was first released on DVD in North America on October 12 2004 in both widescreen and full screen versions. It also had a limited VHS release with a full screen format.
• A 2-disc "collector's edition" containing production featurettes, two documentaries: a "behind-the-scenes" and another called "The Forces of Destiny", as well as storyboards and concept sketches were also included. It was released on May 24 2005.
• It was released in high-definition video on Blu-ray Disc in North America on October 2 2007 and United Kingdom on April 28 2008 in full 1080p with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio track, however with few bonus features. The film made $110,000,000 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $652,771,772.

See also

• Fifty Degrees Below, a Kim Stanley Robinson novel in which greenhouse warming similarly disrupts the Gulf Stream; the rate of cooling is somewhat less exaggerated.
• Superstorm, a 2007 miniseries.
• Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow, an episode of South Park that parodies the film.
• "The Midnight Sun," an episode of The Twilight Zone in which Earth is rapidly heating.
• Disaster Movie
• Time of the Great Freeze, a novel by Robert Silverberg about a second Ice Age.
• The Coming Global Superstorm, a book on which the movie is based.
• The World in Winter, a 1962 book by John Christopher about the beginning of a new ice age.
• Storm of the Century (1993)
• Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet
• Climate change denial

External links

• The Day After Tomorrow at IMDb
• The Day After Tomorrow at AllMovie
• The Day After Tomorrow at Rotten Tomatoes
• USA today review
• CoolJunkie review
• Yahoo! Movies: The Day After Tomorrow (2004) - Movie Info
• Scientific explanations of movie scenes on cisci.net