May 17, 2004 (Mexico City)
May 28, 2004 (United States)
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film 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.
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.
Storyline
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 impeding 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 −150 degrees Fahrenheit (−101 degrees Celsius), which caused the helicopter crash by freezing the fuel onboard.
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. A massive storm surge inundates the city, forcing Sam's group to seek shelter at the New York Public Library. While helping to rescue two French-speaking tourists in distress from a cab with a police officer, Laura cuts her leg. 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.
Movie Trailer
- The Day After Tomorrow (2004) (Trailers)