The Day After Tomorrow

Release Date: May 28, 2004


Movie of the Day for Thursday, May 13, 2004
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Where's Moses when you need him?

On the Big Board
Position Staff In Brief
26/92 David Mumpower B-movie paradise.
46/48 Les Winan A movie so intensely ridiculous, so relentlessly atrocious that it could only have come from the mind of Roland Emmerich. Terrible, terrible filmmaking.
81/126 Kim Hollis Plenty of Big Dumb Fun.
113/133 Dan Krovich Emmerich strikes (out) again.

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Generally, in the summer of even-numbered years, Roland Emmerich treats us to one of his special effects spectaculars. The summer of 2004 will be no exception. He is the master of stories involving humanity versus a power greater than itself. In Godzilla, it was the legendary mutated creature. In Independence Day, it was a horde of conquering aliens. This time the people of Earth have to fight the forces of nature, which we have brought upon ourselves through the “greenhouse effect” and global warming.

Dennis Quaid has been tapped to star as paleoclimatologist Professor Adrian Hall. If you aren’t well versed in the sciences, his job can be broken down this way. “Paleo” means “old”, “climat” is “weather”, and “ologist” is “a studier of”. Put it all together and you can figure out that he studies historical weather patterns.

The world’s weather patterns have gone crazy with hurricanes, tornados, rain, tidal waves, floods, etc. The latest occurrence is a modern ice age that is descending rapidly from the north and causing people to flee to the warmer regions of the Earth. Dr. Hall has another plan. He’s going to figure out how to save the world and humanity from total destruction.

Before Adrian can do that, though, he has a more pressing concern. As the entire world heads south for the thousand years winter, Dr. Hall is the only one crazy enough to head north. As fate would have it, his son Sam (played by the increasingly ubiquitious Jake Gyllenhaal) was in New York City on that unfortunate date when the dams broke and the area was turned into an island. Well, moreso. Adrian has to head to the heart of the problem, save his son, and figure out how to stop an entire ice age all by himself. It's going to be a busy week.

The smoking hot Sela Ward plays Quaid's wife/Gyllenhaal's mom. Emily Rossum (aka the subject of Sean Penn's "Is that my daughter in there??!!" howling in Mystic River) plays Gyllenhaal's wheelchair bound love interest. Hmmmm, what are the chances that her lack of mobility during the various diasters is going to be a plot point?

To give you some idea of the magnitude of the special effects involved in this picture, the budget is reported to be in the range of $125 million. Also, the release of this film was pushed back a year (from Summer 2003) so that the special effects crew would have time to give the movie their special touch. Nobody is ever going to accuse Roland Emmerich of not going all out in his various attempts to destroy world monuments. (Marty Doskins and David Mumpower/BOP)




Vital statistics for The Day After Tomorrow
Main Cast Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal
Supporting Cast Emmy Rossum, Sela Ward, Joe Cobden, Jared Harris, Rick Hoffman, Perry King, Kenneth Moskow, Austin Nichols, Nestor Serrano, Arjay Smith, Tamlyn Tomita
Director Roland Emmerich
Screenwriter Roland Emmerich
Distributor Twentieth Century Fox
Trailer Click Here for Trailer
Official Site http://www.thedayaftertomorrow.com/
Rating PG-13
Screen Count 3,425
Talent in red has entry in The Big Picture



Comparison films for The Day After Tomorrow
Title
Date
Opening
Adjusted Opening
Screens
PSA
Adj PSA
Total BO
Adjusted Total
Mult
Independence Day 7/5/9650.23 68.52 2882 17429.00 22870.6 306.17 417.70 3.47
Godzilla 5/22/9844.74 57.52 3310 13517.00 16716.1 136.31 175.25 2.11
Perfect Storm, The 6/30/0041.33 46.23 3407 12131.00 13053.8 182.60 204.27 4.42
Deep Impact 5/8/9841.15 52.90 3156 13039.00 16125.0 140.46 180.58 3.41
Twister 5/10/9641.06 56.01 2414 17009.00 22319.5 241.89 330.01 5.89
Armageddon 7/3/9836.09 46.40 3127 11541.00 14272.5 201.58 259.17 5.08
Dante's Peak 2/7/9718.49 24.29 2657 6959.00 8793.5 67.16 88.22 3.63
Volcano 4/25/9714.58 19.15 2774 5256.00 6641.6 47.49 62.38 3.26
Core, The 3/28/0312.05 12.05 3017 3995.00 3995.0 31.11 31.11 2.58


     


 
 

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