Produced by McKay's
Hyperobject Industries and
Bluegrass Films, the film was announced in November 2019. Originally set for a theatrical release by
Paramount Pictures, the distribution rights were acquired by
Netflix several months later. Lawrence became the first member of the cast to join, with DiCaprio signing on after his discussions with McKay on adjustments to the script; the rest of the cast was added through 2020. Filming was initially set to begin in April 2020 in
Massachusetts, but it was delayed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic; it eventually began in November 2020 and wrapped in February 2021.[8][9]
Kate Dibiasky, a doctoral candidate in
astronomy at
Michigan State University, discovers an unknown
comet. Her professor, Doctor Randall Mindy, confirms that it will collide with Earth in approximately six months and is large enough to cause a global
extinction event.
NASA verifies the findings, and Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, head of their
Planetary Defense Coordination Office, accompanies Dibiasky and Mindy to present their findings to the
White House. However, they are met with apathy from
President Janie Orlean and her
Chief of Staff Jason Orlean, who is also her son.
Oglethorpe encourages Dibiasky and Mindy to leak the news to the media, which they do so on The Daily Rip, a popular
morning talk show. When hosts Jack Bremmer and Brie Evantee treat the topic lightly, Dibiasky loses her temper and angrily rants about the threat before she flees the scene. Mindy receives public approval for his looks, while Dibiasky becomes the subject of negative
memes for her on-air behavior. Actual news about the comet's threat receives little public attention, and the danger is denied by Orlean's NASA Director Jocelyn Calder, a top
donor to Orlean with no background in astronomy. When news of Orlean's
sex scandal with her Supreme Court nominee Sheriff Conlon is exposed, she distracts from the bad publicity by finally confirming the threat and announcing a project to
strike and divert the comet using
nuclear weapons.
The mission successfully launches, but Orlean abruptly aborts it when Peter Isherwell, the billionaire CEO of BASH Cellular and another top donor, discovers that the comet contains trillions of dollars worth of
rare-earth elements. The White House agrees to commercially exploit the comet by fragmenting and recovering it from the ocean, using technology proposed by BASH in a scheme that has not undergone
peer review. Orlean sidelines Dibiasky and Oglethorpe while hiring Mindy as the
National Science Advisor. Dibiasky attempts to mobilize public opposition to the scheme but gives up under threat from Orlean's administration. Mindy becomes a prominent voice advocating for the comet's commercial opportunities and begins an affair with Evantee.
World opinion is divided among people who believe the comet is a severe threat, those who decry alarmism and believe that mining a destroyed comet will create jobs, and those who deny that the comet even exists. When Dibiasky returns home to
Illinois, her parents kick her out of the house and she begins a relationship with a young man named Yule, a shoplifter she meets at her retail job. After Mindy's wife confronts him about his infidelity, she returns to Michigan without him. Mindy questions whether Isherwell's technology will be able to break apart the comet, angering the billionaire. Becoming frustrated with the administration, Mindy finally breaks down and rants on national television, criticizing Orlean for downplaying the impending apocalypse and questioning humanity's indifference.
Cut off from the administration, Mindy reconciles with Dibiasky as the comet becomes visible from Earth. Mindy, Dibiasky, and Oglethorpe organize a protest campaign on
social media, telling people to "Just Look Up" and call on other countries to conduct comet interception operations. Simultaneously, Orlean starts an anti-campaign telling people "Don't Look Up". Orlean and BASH cut
Russia,
India, and
China out of the rights for the comet-mining deal, so they prepare their own joint deflection mission, only for their spacecraft to explode. As the comet becomes larger in the sky, Orlean's supporters start turning on her administration. BASH's attempt at breaking the comet apart goes awry and everyone realizes that humanity is doomed.
Isherwell, Orlean, and others in their elite circle board a
sleeper spaceship designed to find an
Earth-like planet, inadvertently leaving Jason behind. Orlean offers Mindy two places on the ship, but he declines, choosing to spend a final evening with his friends and family. As expected, the comet strikes off the coast of
Chile, causing a worldwide disaster and triggering an
extinction-level event.
In a
mid-credits scene, the 2,000 people who left Earth before the comet's impact land on a lush alien planet 22,740 years later, ending their period of
suspended animation. They exit their spacecraft naked and admire the habitable world. However, Orlean is suddenly killed by a bird-like predator, one of a pack that surrounds the planetary newcomers.
In a
post-credits scene back on Earth, it is revealed that Jason managed to survive the impact. He records himself, declaring himself the "last man on Earth" and asking any viewers still alive to "like and subscribe".
Robert Joy as Congressman Tenant, a congressman and follower of Janie
Other cast members include Kevin Craig West as the
Secretary of State; Erik Parillo as Sheriff Conlon, Orlean's choice for
Supreme Court Justice who ends up in a sex scandal with Orlean;
Jon Glaser as Meow Man; Sarah Nolen as the puppeteer of Sammy; Allyn Burrows as Mr. Dibiasky, the father of Kate; and Tori Davis Lawlor as Mrs. Dibiasky, the mother of Kate.
Additionally, Robert Hurst Radochia and Conor Sweeney appear as Randall and June's sons, Evan and Marshall Mindy.
Hettienne Park appears as Dr. Jocelyn Calder, the
Administrator of NASA. Chris Everett appears as Paula Woods, chief editor at the New York Herald.
There are cameo appearances by
Liev Schreiber as the BASH narrator, journalist
Ashleigh Banfield as Dalia Hensfield,
Sarah Silverman as comedian Sarah Benterman, Bollywood actor
Ishaan Khatter as Raghav Manavalan, and
Chris Evans in an uncredited role as film actor Devin Peters, who stars in the film Total Devastation and attempts to be a
centrist about whether or not to worry about the failure to divert the comet when humanity had the chance.
Produced by
Hyperobject Industries and
Bluegrass Films, the film was announced in November 2019 and sold by
Paramount Pictures to
Netflix several months later. Lawrence became the first member of the cast to join, with DiCaprio signing on after his discussions with McKay on adjustments to the script; the rest of the cast was added through 2020.
This movie came from my burgeoning terror about the climate crisis and the fact that we live in a society that tends to place it as the fourth or fifth news story, or in some cases even deny that it's happening, and how horrifying that is, but at the same time preposterously funny.[12]
—
Adam McKay, writer, director, and producer of Don't Look Up
After Vice was released,
David Sirota asked
Adam McKay to use his "superpowers of humor and writing" to create a
climate change movie that would be different from the Mad Max-type post-apocalyptic films that had previously been released.[13] In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, McKay described how he and Sirota came up with the premise of Don't Look Up while discussing the existential threat of
climate change and their frustration over the lack of
media coverage it was receiving:
I started talking to a lot of [climate] scientists. I kept looking for good news, and I never got it. Everything I was hearing was worse than what I was hearing on the mainstream media. So I was talking to [David Sirota], and we were both just like, "can you believe that this isn't being covered in the media? That it's being pushed to the end of the story? That there's no headlines?" And Sirota just offhandedly said, "it's like a comet is heading to Earth and it's going to destroy us all and no one cares." And I was like, "that's the idea!"[14]
McKay has described the film as a "blend of broad comedy" with elements of disaster films and horror films.[15]
Astronomer
Amy Mainzer, principal investigator of
NASA's
NEOWISE mission that tracks
near-Earth objects, served as an "astrotech adviser" for the film. She provided scientific advice and supported with writing scenes from an early stage of production.[16][17]
Principal photography was delayed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic.[30] Filming commenced on November 18, 2020, at various locations in
Boston, Massachusetts.[31] Part of the film takes place in
New York City with Boston standing in as New York. Filming also took place in other Massachusetts cities including
Brockton,
Framingham, and
Westborough.[a][32][33] On February 5, 2021, Jennifer Lawrence was mildly injured during filming when a controlled glass explosion went awry.[34] Filming wrapped on February 18, 2021.[35]
Lawsuit
On December 6, 2023, Adam McKay, along with Netflix, was sued for copyright infringement over Don't Look Up. William Collier, an author from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, claimed that he is the original writer of the story, set in Baton Rouge, called "Stanley's Comet", which he self-published in 2012. Collier's daughter worked for Jimmer Miller Entertainment, part of McKay's management team until 2015. Collier alleges that his daughter submitted the text to Mosaic Media Group and it was then received by McKay's manager. "Since Stanley’s Comet was received by McKay’s manager, custom and practice in the entertainment industry dictates that this constitutes receipt by McKay," writes Steven Lowe, a lawyer for Collier, in the suit. "Furthermore, upon information and belief, the Novel was transmitted via courier, email or hand-delivery (or via other means) to McKay himself."[36]
"The movie, like the novel, makes a strong political critique of the media, the government, and the cultural elite by showcasing their shallowness and reliance on popular opinion polls and social media algorithms," writes USC professor of comparative literature David Roman. "McKay’s film is also full of satire and humor and — like Stanley’s Comet — moves toward the absurd. In each case, the irony drives the humor and the social critique and does so in the same style and method."[36]
To promote the film, on December 3, 2021, Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi released the single "
Just Look Up", which is also performed in the film.[37] The original score for the film is composed by
Nicholas Britell, who previously scored McKay's
The Big Short (2015), Vice (2018) and the
HBO television series
Succession (2019–2022); McKay served as an executive producer of the latter. He used a wide range of instrumentation that reflect varied music styles and genres.[38][39] He did this so as to give a remainder on the existential crisis on the planet following a catastrophic event as well as the absurdity of how people react to it.[40] Apart from "Just Look Up", the film also featured "Second Nature" by
Bon Iver, which was released along with Britell's score album on December 10, by
Republic Records.[41]
Reception
Box office and VoD
On February 19, 2020, it was announced that
Netflix planned to release the film in 2020.[19] Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, filming and release of the film were delayed.[42] The film premiered in
New York City on December 5, 2021.[43] It received a
limited theatrical release on December 10, and began streaming on Netflix on December 24.[44][45] The film made an estimated $260,000 from 500 theaters on its first day, and a total of $700,000 in its opening weekend.[46]
Don't Look Up was the most-streamed English-language film on Netflix during its first week of release with a viewership of 111.03 million hours,[47] the second highest viewership for a movie during its debut weekend on Netflix.[48] It was the second most-streamed-film of the week in the United States according to
TV Time.[49] Per
Nielsen, the film had a viewership of 1.6 billion minutes in the United States.[50] In the second week, it retained its first position with a viewership of 152.29 million hours,[51] which also set the record for highest weekly viewership for any film ever on Netflix.[52][53]
For its first 28 days, the film culminated a viewership of 359.8 million hours, making it the second most-watched film within 28 days of release on Netflix during this period of time.[54] By March 20, the film had been streamed in 10.3 million households in the United States according to
Samba TV, including 641,000 since the Oscar nomination announcements on February 8.[55]
Critical response
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On the
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes, 55% of 305 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Don't Look Up aims too high for its scattershot barbs to consistently land, but Adam McKay's star-studded satire hits its target of collective denial square on."[56]Metacritic, which uses a
weighted average, assigned the film a score of 49 out of 100, based on 52 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[57]
The San Francisco Chronicle'sMick LaSalle praised the film and wrote, "Don't Look Up might be the funniest movie of 2021. It's the most depressing too, and that odd combination makes for a one-of-a-kind experience... McKay gives you over two hours of laughs while convincing you that the world is coming to an end."[58]Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars and said: "From Streep and DiCaprio and Lawrence through the supporting players, Don't Look Up is filled with greatly talented actors really and truly selling this material—but the volume remains at 11 throughout the story when some changes in tone here and there might have more effectively carried the day."[59] Reviewing the film for the Los Angeles Times,
Justin Chang wrote, "Nothing about the foolishness and outrageousness of what the movie shows us—no matter how virtuosically sliced and diced by McKay's characteristically jittery editor, Hank Corwin—can really compete with the horrors of our real-world American idiocracy."[60] Amit Katwala of Wired concluded that "Don't Look Up nails the frustration of being a scientist."[61] Linda Marric of The Jewish Chronicle gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "There is something genuinely endearing about a film that doesn't seem to care one bit about coming across as silly as long as its message is heard".[62]
In a negative review, David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "A cynical, insufferably smug satire stuffed to the gills with stars that purports to comment on political and media inattention to the climate crisis but really just trivializes it. Dr. Strangelove it ain't."[63] Peter Debruge of Variety called the film a "smug, easy-target political satire" and wrote, "Don't Look Up plays like the leftie answer to Armageddon—which is to say, it ditches the
Bruckheimer approach of assembling a bunch of blue-collar heroes to rocket out to space and nuke the approaching comet, opting instead to spotlight the apathy, incompetence and financial self-interest of all involved."[64] In The Guardian, Charles Bramesco wrote that the "script states the obvious as if everyone else is too stupid to realize it and does so from a position of lofty superiority that would drive away any partisans who still need to be won over."[65] In
The Sociological Review, Katherine Cross accused the film of "smug condescension" and wrote that the film "is designed to flatter a certain type of liberal viewer into feeling like they're the last sane person in the world, surrounded by morons."[66]
Reviews from right-wing publications were nearly unanimously negative. Madeline Fry Schultz of the
American conservative publication Washington Examiner wrote that "McKay manages to deliver nothing more than a derivative and meandering 'satire' of capitalism, Donald Trump, and climate deniers that will be forgotten in less than six months."[67]Kyle Smith of American conservative publication National Review wrote that the film "expends 140 brain-injuriously unfunny minutes... propelling low-velocity spitballs at social media, Washington, tech moguls,
Trumpism, and (this detail feels thrown in last minute) anti-vaxxers."[68]
Nathan J. Robinson, editor of American progressive publication Current Affairs, believes that "critics were not only missing the point of the film in important ways, but that the very way they discussed the film exemplified the problem that the film was trying to draw attention to. Some of the responses to the movie could have appeared in the movie itself."[69]Slavoj Žižek, writing in Compact, said that "critics were displeased by the light tone of Don't Look Up!, claiming it trivializes the ultimate apocalypse. What really bothered these critics is the exact opposite: The film highlights trivialization that permeates not only the establishment, but even the protesters."[70] In The Guardian,
Catherine Bennett viewed the film as astute and was caustic about the critical reviews.[71] British journalist and environmental activist
George Monbiot wrote in The Guardian that "no wonder journalists have slated it ... it's about them" and added that for environmental activists like himself, the film, while fast‑paced and humorous, "seemed all too real".[72]
In an opinion piece published in The Guardian, climate scientist
Peter Kalmus remarked, "Don't Look Up is satire. But speaking as a climate scientist doing everything I can to wake people up and avoid planetary destruction, it's also the most accurate film about society's terrifying non-response to climate breakdown I've seen."[77] Climate scientist
Michael E. Mann also expressed support for the film, calling it "serious sociopolitical commentary posing as comedy".[78] In an article for Scientific American,
Rebecca Oppenheimer questioned the film's use of a comet impact as an effective metaphor for climate change, given the large differences in timescale of these differing potential
extinction crisis events and the nature of their impacts, but praised its depiction of science
denialism and depiction of a botched attempt to address a "planet-killer" comet.[16] Climate policy expert
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and McKay wrote a joint op-ed in The Guardian advocating for the value of humour in promoting action on climate change, in contrast with other
media coverage.[79]
Writing in Physics World, Laura Hiscott said that this "genuinely funny and entertaining film" would appeal to scientists, who would appreciate the "nods to academia such as the importance of
peer review, the 'publish or perish' problem and the issue of senior academics getting the credit for their PhD students' discoveries".[80]
One of the scenes in the film was compared on social media to a situation in
Brazil. In that situation,
microbiologist and science communicator
Natália Pasternak Taschner criticized a news report made by
TV Cultura on a live broadcast in December 2020. They told the Brazilian population to face the
COVID-19 pandemic with "lightness", minimizing the risks. They also put pressure on the public to be content and uncritical of the
Jair Bolsonaro administration's lack of effective response to the pandemic.[81] Hearing about the comparisons, Pasternak thanked McKay, DiCaprio and Lawrence on
Twitter, with the video subtitled in English, for the "incredible" film.[82]
The topic of
science communication is at the forefront of the film, as it revolves around Mindy and Dibiasky, two scientists, struggling to share the news of their discovery with politicians, talk show hosts, and civilians who are ignorant about the scientific facts of humanity's impending destruction by Comet Dibiasky. Many academic scholars of media and communication have written commentaries that analyze and critique the portrayal of science communication in the film.[citation needed]
U.S. centrism
In the Journal of Science Communication, Niels G. Mede writes "the film depicts sharp partisan divides, strong affective polarization, high distrust toward science within certain social milieus, and pronounced news media
sensationalism, which have been found to be characteristic of the United States but not, or to a lesser extent, of several countries other than the US."[142] From the same journal, writer Julie Doyle remarked that, "yet, as the film critiques existing structures and systems it does not imagine an alternative set of realities, nor explain the comet's cause. In focusing upon the fictional stories of scientists, politicians, and media celebrities, the film fails to center any marginalized voices, continuing to privilege global north perspectives, even as these are satirised."[143] Doyle comments that "climate communication needs to keep in place both climate mitigation and adaptation, making the historical and structural inequalities of capitalism and colonialism the interconnected stories of both."[143]
Media training for scientists
One solution to Mindy and Dibiasky's failed attempts to communicate the severity of the impending comet is undergoing
media training, which was brought up in the film multiple times, such as at the conference room at the New York Herald where the Chief Editor proposes media training to Mindy before the show. The concept of media training can come in different forms. Samer Angelone, in a commentary journal on science communication, writes, "The style that scientists use to communicate science to peer scientists is mostly objective, complex, and full of technical jargon, which is difficult for the general public to connect to—even if it is in the same language."[144] Another way to mitigate science skepticism is through storytelling. Mede writes, "The film also illustrates that storytelling can be a promising strategy to mitigate these reservations... showing how Mindy is advised before a TV interview that he is 'just telling a story' and must 'keep it simple.'"[142]
Gendered emotions in scientific communication
Gendered discourse on emotions and mental health make its way into the film through the portrayal of the public's reaction to Mindy and Dibiasky's various media appearances. The scientists share their discovery on a morning talk show, The Daily Rip, in which Dibiasky has an emotional outburst over the show hosts' persistent attempts to sugarcoat the devastating news of the doomsday comet. Professor of media and communication Julie Doyle writes, "
Gendered norms affect Mindy and Dibiasky's public credibility and the mitigatory comet actions they promote. Following his own emotional outburst on TV, Mindy is subsequently recuperated through processes of celebritisation... hailed as a 'sexy' scientist offering rational and calm advice to the viewers; becoming chief science advisor to the White House to monitor the drone activities of tech billionaire Peter Isherwell; and embarking on a sexual affair with Evantee. In contrast, Dibiasky is discredited and side-lined from rational public commentary through (climate) memes."[143]
Easter eggs
Throughout the film, many historic figures from science and politics can be spotted, adding to the film's nuanced discussion about the relationship between science and politics.
The opening scene of the film features a figure of
Carl Sagan on Dibiasky's desk. In a journal commentary for Science Communication, Samer Angelone writes that "Sagan was an astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, and astrobiologist but, above all, he was an upholder of scientific credibility and communication."[144] Sagan advocated for the urgency to battle climate change, and many viewers see the film as an allegory for him, but his image is juxtaposed by a painting of
George W. Bush, "who later tried to downplay this urgency."[142] The film also "references the affinity of anti-science resentment and populism, showing how President Orlean and her team slander Mindy and Dibiasky using populist rhetoric...and gather in an Oval Office that has a portrait of the anti-establishment science skeptic Andrew Jackson."[142]
The film ends with a scene that reflects the
Last Supper. Dr. Mindy, his family, Kate, Yule, and Teddy all sit around a dinner table and engage in a hand-held prayer, spoken by Yule. After the prayer, Kate Dibiasky gives Yule a kiss, and moments later Comet Dibiasky destroys Earth.[145]