| The Day After Tomorrow | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Roland Emmerich |
| Produced by | Roland Emmerich Mark Gordon |
| Written by | Roland Emmerich Jeffrey Nachmanoff |
| Starring | Dennis Quaid Jake Gyllenhaal Emmy Rossum Ian Holm Sela Ward |
| Music by | Harald Kloser |
| Cinematography | Ueli Steiger |
| Editing by | David Brenner |
| Studio | Centropolis Entertainment |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | May 17, 2004 (New Mexico premiere) May 21, 2004 (Berlin premiere) May 24, 2004 (New York City premiere) May 26, 2004 (UK premiere) May 28, 2004 (United States) |
| Running time | 124 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $125 million |
| Box office | $544,272,402[1] |
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science-fiction disaster film that depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling which leads to a new ice age. The film did well at the box office, grossing $542,771,772 internationally. Domestically, it is the sixth highest grossing movie not to be #1 in the US box office (behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Alvin and the Chipmunks and its sequel, Sherlock Holmes, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs), but worldwide, it is third behind only Ice Age 3 and Casino Royale. 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 and 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 global DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $654,771,772.[2]
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Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is a paleoclimatologist on an expedition in Antarctica with colleagues Frank (Jay O. Sanders) and Jason (Dash Mihok). They are drilling for ice core samples on the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA when the shelf breaks off and Jack almost falls to his death. Later in New Delhi, Jack presents his findings on global warming at a United Nations conference, where diplomats and Vice President of the United States Raymond Becker (Kenneth Welsh) are unconvinced by Jack's findings.
However, Professor Terry Rapson (Ian Holm) of the Hedland Climate Research Centre in Scotland believes in Jack's theories. Several buoys in the North Atlantic simultaneously show a massive drop in the ocean temperature, and Rapson concludes that melting polar ice is disrupting the North Atlantic current. He contacts Jack, whose paleoclimatological weather model shows how climate changes caused the first Ice Age, and can predict what will happen. Jack thought the events would take hundreds or thousands of years, but his team, along with NASA's meteorologist Janet Tokada (Tamlyn Tomita), builds a forecast model with their combined data.
Across the world, violent weather causes mass destruction, including a massive snowstorm in New Delhi, a powerful hailstorm striking Tokyo, Japan, and a series of devastating tornadoes in Los Angeles. President Blake (Perry King) authorizes the FAA to suspend all air traffic due to severe turbulence. At the International Space Station (ISS) three astronauts see a huge storm system spanning the northern hemisphere, delaying their returning home. The situation worsens when the latter develops into three massive hurricane-like superstorms with eyes holding super-cooled air that instantly freezes anything it comes in contact with. Jack's theories become reality in seven to ten days' time.
Meanwhile, 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), where they also befriend a student named J.D. (Austin Nichols). On the flight over there is severe turbulence and Sam grabs Laura's hand in fright. During the competition, birds migrating south suddenly fill the sky as animals all over New York become agitated. The weather becomes increasingly violent with intense winds and rains, causing the traffic-jammed Manhattan streets to become flooded knee-deep in a mix of rainwater, saltwater, and sewage. Sam calls his father, promising to be on the next train home, but the subways and Grand Central Terminal are closed due to flooding. As the storm worsens a massive tidal wave hits Manhattan, causing major flooding and killing thousands in the chaos. Sam and his friends seek shelter in the New York Public Library, but not before Laura gets wounded, cutting her leg on a submerged taxicab.
While survivors in the northern United States are forced to stay inside due to the cold, President Blake orders the evacuation of the southern states, causing almost all of the refugees to head to Mexico. Initially Mexico closes its US border, but President Blake negotiates to open the border. Jack and his team set out for Manhattan to find his son. Their truck crashes into a tractor just past Philadelphia, so the group continues on snowshoes. During the journey, Frank falls through the glass roof of a snow-covered shopping mall. As Jason and Jack try to pull Frank up, the glass under them continues to crack and Frank sacrifices himself by cutting the rope and falling to the floor far below. Meanwhile in Mexico, Vice President Raymond Becker hears from the Secretary of State that President Blake's motorcade was caught in one of the superstorms before he could make it to Mexico, so Becker is sworn in as the new President.
Inside the library, Sam warns everyone to stay indoors, but few listen. The small group that remains burns books to stay alive and breaks the vending machine for food. Laura appeared to have a cold, so Sam comforts her and later confesses that he joined the team because he held feelings for Laura. Laura and Sam share a kiss. Soon after, the group find out that Laura is afflicted with blood poisoning due to her cut leg being infected. So Sam, Brian and J.D. search for penicillin in a derelict Russian cargo ship that drifted inland, and are attacked by starving wolves. The eye of the superstorm begins to pass over the city, instantly freezing everything from the top-down. The three barely get back to the library with the medicine, food and supplies they were able to scavenge.
During the deep freeze, Jack and Jason take shelter in an abandoned Wendy's restaurant, then resume their journey after the astronauts confirm the storm's dissipation, finally arriving in New York City. They discover the library buried in snow, but find Sam's group alive. They radio this in and the President orders in Black Hawk helicopters. President Becker orders search and rescue teams to look for other survivors (having been given hope by the survival of Sam's group) as he gives his first address to the nation. As the main characters are evacuated and flown over the city, they see that hundreds of other helicopters searching for more survivors find success as people from other skyscrapers flock to the roofs, looking for a ride to safety. The movie concludes with the astronauts looking down at Earth from the Space Station, showing most of the northern hemisphere covered in ice and snow, and "the clearest atmosphere I've ever seen" (one of the astronauts).
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. The book "The Sixth Winter" written by Douglas Orgill and John Gribbin and published in 1979, follows a similar theme. So does the novel Ice!, by Arnold Federbush, published in 1978.
Shortly before and during the release of the movie, members of environmental and political advocacy groups distributed pamphlets to moviegoers describing what they believed to be the possible effects of global warming. Although the film depicts some effects of global warming predicted by scientists, such as 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 U.S. politicians concerning their rejection of 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 Day After Tomorrow generated mixed reviews from both the science and entertainment communities. The online entertainment guide, Rotten Tomatoes, rated the film at 45%, with an average rating of 5.3/10.[3] Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, praised the film's special effects, giving the film three stars out of four. Environmental activist and The Guardian columnist George Monbiot called The Day After Tomorrow "a great movie and lousy science."[4]
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 film "propaganda," noting, "As a scientist, I bristle when lies dressed up as 'science' are used to influence political discourse."[5] In a Space Daily editorial by Joseph Gutheinz, a college instructor and retired NASA Office of Inspector General, Senior Special Agent, Gutheinz called the film "a cheap thrill ride, which many weak-minded people will jump on and stay on for the rest of their lives."[6]
Paleoclimatologist William Hyde of Duke University was asked on Usenet whether he would be seeing the film; he responded that he would not unless someone were to offer him $100.[7] Other readers of the newsgroup took this as a challenge, and (despite Hyde's protests) raised the necessary funds. Hyde's review 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", as quoted in New Scientist.
In 2008, Yahoo! Movies listed The Day After Tomorrow as one of Top 10 Scientifically Inaccurate Movies.[8] The film was criticized for depicting several different meteorological phenomena occurring over the course of hours, instead of the possible time frame of several decades or centuries.[9]
Over its four-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.[1]
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 then Vice-President Dick Cheney. 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.[10]
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.[11][12][13]
A number of scientists were critical of the scientific aspects of the film:
The film made $110,000,000 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $652,771,772.
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