The Day After Tomorrow

Template:Short description Template:Other uses Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox film The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> co-written, co-produced, and directed by Roland Emmerich, based on the 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, and starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Emmy Rossum, and Ian Holm. It depicts catastrophic climatic effects following the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation, in which a series of extreme weather events usher in climate change and lead to a new ice age.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Originally slated for release in the summer of 2003, The Day After Tomorrow premiered in Mexico City on May 17, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States by 20th Century Fox on May 28. It was a commercial success, grossing $552 million worldwide against a production budget of $125 million, becoming the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2004. Filmed in Montreal, it was the highest-grossing Hollywood film made in Canada at its time of release. The film was nominated for Best Science Fiction Film and Best Special Effects at the Saturn Awards.

Plot

Jack Hall, a paleoclimatologist, along with his colleagues Frank and Jason drill for ice-core samples in the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA, moments before the ice shelf splits away.

At a UN conference in New Delhi, Jack discusses his research showing that climate change could cause an impending ice age, but US Vice President Raymond Becker dismisses his findings. Professor Terry Rapson, an oceanographer of the Hedland Centre in Scotland, believes Jack and befriends him over his views of an inevitable climate shift.

Tokyo is struck by a giant hailstorm, and astronauts from the International Space Station spot three gigantic superstorms above Canada, Europe, and Siberia. Rapson's team in Scotland begins noticing severe temperature drops from multiple buoys in the North Atlantic, realizing Jack's theories were correct, with the climate shift happening too quickly. Remnants of a hurricane spawn a destructive tornado outbreak over the L.A. Basin. Three helicopters sent to rescue the British royal family from Balmoral Castle crash in Scotland after they flew into a superstorm's eye.

Jack and Rapson's teams, along with NASA meteorologist Janet Tokada, built a forecast model based on Jack's research, discovering that the impact of climate change would happen in 6–8 weeks (later discovered as being 7–10 days). Rapson notifies Jack that siphoned air from the upper troposphere flash freezes anything caught in the eyes of the cyclones with temperatures below Template:Convert, which caused the helicopter crash by freezing the fuel on board.

In New York City, Jack's son Sam, along with his friends Brian and Laura, participates in an academic decathlon, where they make a new friend, JD. The North American superstorm creates strong winds and rain that flood Manhattan with knee-deep water. All transportation halts, stranding the city's population. While helping to rescue two French-speaking tourists in distress from a cab with a police officer, Laura cuts her leg. A massive storm surge inundates the city, forcing Sam's group to seek shelter at the New York Public Library. Sam contacts Jack and his mother Lucy, a pediatrician, through a working payphone. Jack warns Sam of the impending superstorm, urges him to stay inside and warm, promising to rescue him. Rapson and his team succumb to the European storm. Lucy remains in her hospital, caring for bedridden patients, where the authorities eventually rescue them.

Upon Jack's suggestion, President Blake orders the populations of the southern states to be evacuated into Mexico. In contrast, the government warns those in the northern areas to seek shelter and stay warm. Jack, Jason, and Frank make their way to NYC. While trekking across Pennsylvania, Frank falls through the skylight of a mall covered in snow and sacrifices himself by cutting his rope to prevent his friends from also falling in. In the library, most survivors set out to join the southern states refugees after the floodwater freezes, despite Sam's warnings. In Mexico, Becker learns that Blake's motorcade perished in the superstorm.

Laura develops sepsis from her injury, whereupon Sam, Brian, and JD scour an abandoned Russian cargo ship that drifted into the city before the water froze for penicillin and supplies. When they find them, they also encounter a pack of escaped wolves from the Central Park Zoo. The boys fend off the wolves and return to the library with what they need as the eye of the North American superstorm passes over and freezes Manhattan. Jack and Jason barely escape by taking shelter in an abandoned restaurant.

Days later, the superstorms dissipate. After finding people outside frozen to death, including those from the library who tried to escape, Jack and Jason reach the library, finding Sam's group alive. Jack sends a radio message to US forces in Mexico to begin evacuation efforts.

In his first address as the new president from the US embassy in Mexico, Becker apologizes on The Weather Channel for his ignorance and sends helicopters to rescue survivors, including Jack and Sam's group in New York. On the International Space Station, astronauts look down in awe at Earth's transformed surface, now with ice sheets extending across much of the Northern Hemisphere, remarking that the air never looked so clear.

Production

Development

The Day After Tomorrow was inspired by Coast to Coast AM talk-radio host Art Bell and Whitley Strieber's book, The Coming Global Superstorm,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Strieber wrote the film's novelization. To choose a studio, writer Michael Wimer created an auction, with a copy of the script being sent to all major studios along with a term sheet. They had a 24-hour window to decide whether to produce the movie with Roland Emmerich directing, and Fox Studios was the only studio to accept the terms.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Filming

The Day After Tomorrow was filmed predominantly in Montreal<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Toronto,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> with some footage also shot in New York City<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Chiyoda, Tokyo.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Filming ran from November 7, 2002, until October 18, 2003.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Visual effects

The Day After Tomorrow features 416 visual effects shots, with nine effects houses, notably Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), and Digital Domain, and over 1,000 artists, working on the film for over a year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Although a miniature set was initially considered according to the behind-the-scenes documentary, for the destruction of New York, effects artists instead utilized a 13-block-sized, LIDAR-scanned 3D model of Manhattan,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> with over 50,000 scanned photographs used for building textures.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Due to its overall complexity and a tight schedule, the storm surge scene required as many as three special effects vendors for certain shots, with the digital water created by either Digital Domain or small effects house Tweak Films, depending on the shot.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Miniatures were employed for a later underwater scene in which a city bus is crushed under the bulbous bow of an abandoned Russian tanker ship that had drifted inland.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Similarly, the opening flyover of Antarctica was also CGI, created by digitally scanning miniature iceberg models created out of sculpted styrofoam; the falling pieces of ice as the shelf cracks were entirely hand-animated. Running for approximately two and a half minutes in length, the scene was at the time the longest continuous all-CGI shot in film history, surpassing the space zoom-out from the opening of Contact (1997).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Music

The Japanese dub has an exclusive theme song called "More Than a Million Miles" by a band coincidentally called Day After Tomorrow.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Soundtrack

The Day After Tomorrow (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack of the film. It was released on May 18, 2004.

Release

The film had its world premiere in Mexico City on May 17, 2004. It was released to theaters in the United States on May 28, 2004.

Home media

Template:Anchor The film was released on VHS and DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on October 12, 2004, and was released in high-definition video on Blu-ray in North America on October 2, 2007, and in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2008, in 1080p with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio track and few bonus features. DVD sales were $110 million, bringing the film's gross to $652,771,772.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Reception

Box office

The film came in second at the US box office behind Shrek 2 over its four-day Memorial Day opening and grossed $85,807,341.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> For twenty years, it would hold the record for having the highest opening weekend for a natural disaster film until 2024 when it was dethroned by Twisters.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It led the per-theater average, with a four-day average of $25,053 (compared to Shrek 2Template:'s four-day average of $22,633). At the end of its theatrical run, the film had grossed $186,740,799 domestically and $552,639,571 worldwide. It was the second-highest opening-weekend film not to lead at the box office; Inside Out surpassed it in June 2015.<ref name="BoxOfficeMojo" />

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, 45% of 219 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "The Day After Tomorrow is a ludicrous popcorn thriller filled with clunky dialogue, but spectacular visuals save it from being a total disaster."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade "B" on an A+ to F scale.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described the film as "profoundly silly", but nonetheless said the film was effective and praised the special effects. He gave it three stars out of four.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune wrote a completely negative review which considered the film unworthy of publicity for the climate change debate it had created.<ref>https://www.newspapers.com/image/235822086/?terms=The%20Day%20After%20Tomorrow&match=1 Chicago Tribune, 30 May 2004, Section 7, Page 3</ref>

Accolades

Award	Subject	Nominee(s)	Result
Saturn Awards	Best Science Fiction Film	The Day After Tomorrow	Template:Nom
	Best Special Effects	Karen E. Goulekas, Neil Corbould, Greg Strause and Remo Balcells	Template:Nom
BAFTA Awards	Best Special Visual Effects		Template:Won
VES Awards	Outstanding Visual Effects in an Effects Driven Motion Picture	Karen Goulekas, Mike Chambers, Greg Strause, Remo Balcells	Template:Nom
	Best Single Visual Effect	Karen Goulekas, Mike Chambers, Chris Horvath, Matthew Butler	Template:Won
MTV Movie Awards	Best Action Sequence	"The destruction of Los Angeles"	Template:Won
	Best Breakthrough Performance	Emmy Rossum	Template:Nom
Irish Film & Television Awards	Best International Actor	Jake Gyllenhaal	Template:Nom
Golden Trailer Awards	Best Action Film	The Day After Tomorrow	Template:Nom
Environmental Media Awards	Best Film	The Day After Tomorrow	Template:Won
BMI Film Awards	Best Music	Harald Kloser	Template:Won
Golden Reel Awards	Best Sound Editing – Effects & Foley	Mark P. Stoeckinger, Larry Kemp, Glenn T. Morgan, Alan Rankin, Michael Kamper, Ann Scibelli, Randy Kelley, Harry Cohen, Bob Beher and Craig S. Jaeger	Template:Nom

Political and scientific criticism

Emmerich did not deny that his casting of a weak president and the resemblance of Kenneth Welsh to Vice President Dick Cheney were intended to criticize the climate change policy of the George W. Bush administration.<ref name="Bowles">Template:Cite web</ref> Responding to claims of insensitivity in his inclusion of scenes of a devastated New York City less than three years after the September 11 attacks, Emmerich said that it was necessary to showcase the increased unity of people in the face of disaster because of the attacks.<ref name="Black">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="UGO">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="CC">Template:Cite news</ref>

Some scientists criticized the film's scientific aspects. Paleoclimatologist and professor of earth and planetary science at Harvard University Daniel P. Schrag said, "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."<ref name="Bowles" /> J. Marshall Shepherd, a research meteorologist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, expressed a similar sentiment: "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."<ref name="Bowles" /> According to University of Victoria climatologist Andrew Weaver, "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."<ref name="Bowles" />

Patrick J. Michaels, a former research professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia and fellow at the Cato Institute who rejected the scientific consensus<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> on global warming, called the film "propaganda" in a USA Today editorial: "As a scientist, I bristle when lies dressed up as 'science' are used to influence political discourse."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> College instructor and retired NASA Office of Inspector General senior special agent Joseph Gutheinz called The Day After Tomorrow "a cheap thrill ride, which many weak-minded people will jump on and stay on for the rest of their lives" in a Space Daily editorial.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, an expert on thermohaline circulation and its effect on climate, said after a talk with scriptwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff at the film's Berlin preview:

Clearly this is a disaster movie and not a scientific documentary, [and] the film makers have taken a lot of artistic license. But the film presents an opportunity to explain that some of the basic background is right: humans are indeed increasingly changing the climate and this is quite a dangerous experiment, including some risk of abrupt and unforeseen changes ... Luckily it is extremely unlikely that we will see major ocean circulation changes in the next couple of decades (I'd be just as surprised as Jack Hall if they did occur); at least most scientists think this will only become a more serious risk towards the end of the century. And the consequences would certainly not be as dramatic as the 'superstorm' depicted in the movie. Nevertheless, a major change in ocean circulation is a risk with serious and partly unpredictable consequences, which we should avoid. And even without events like ocean circulation changes, climate change is serious enough to demand decisive action.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Environmental activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot called The Day After Tomorrow "a great movie and lousy science".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2008, Yahoo! Movies listed The Day After Tomorrow as one of its top-10 scientifically inaccurate films.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It was criticized for depicting meteorological phenomena as occurring over the course of hours, instead of decades or centuries.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A 2015 Washington Post article reported on a paper published in Scientific Reports which indicated that global temperatures could drop relatively rapidly (Template:Convert over an 11-year period) due to a temporary shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation caused by global warming.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• Geostorm – a 2017 film with a similar premise from Emmerich's longtime collaborator Dean Devlin
• Survival film

External links

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• The Day After Tomorrow: A Scientific Critique