| 'The Day After Tomorrow'
 The $150 million production,
The Day After Tomorrow'
by the Director of Independence Day, Roland Emmerich, will be released
simultaneously throughout the world on May 28, 2004 evening. Chennaionline.com
has launched a state-wide contest for the film and lucky winners can get free
movie tickets at specified centres.
The Twentieth Century Fox film
is being released in Chennai as also a version dubbed in Tamil by Icon
Entertainment Pvt Ltd. 140 prints including dubbed
versions mark the opening of the mega film in India. The movie is expected to
gross anywhere between Rs 15-25 crore.
40
prints each are expected to be circulated on the English, Hindi and Tamil
versions, while another 20 prints (Telugu dubbing) are targeted for the Telugu
audience.
The story has a universal
appeal as it deals with the issue of global warming and climatic changes. What
if we are on the brink of a new Ice Age?
 This is the question that
haunts climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid). Hall’s research indicates that
global warming could trigger an abrupt and catastrophic shift in the planet’s
climate. The ice cores that he’s drilled in Antarctica show that it happened
before, ten thousand years ago. And now he’s warning officials that it could
happen again if they don’t act soon. But his warning comes too late.
It all begins when Hall
witnesses a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island break off the Antarctic Ice
Shelf. Then a series of increasingly severe weather events start to unfold
around the globe: hail the size of grapefruit batters Tokyo, record-breaking
hurricane winds pound Hawaii; snow falls in New Delhi, and then a devastating
series of tornadoes whips through Los Angeles.
 A phone call from a colleague
in Scotland, Professor Rapson (Ian Holm), confirms Jack’s worst fears: these
intense weather events are symptoms of a massive global change. Melting polar
caps has poured too much fresh water into the oceans and disrupted the currents
that stabilize our climate system. Global warming has pushed the planet over the
edge and into a new Ice Age. And it all will happen during one global super
storm.
While Jack warns the White
House of the impending climate shift, his 17 year-old son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal)
finds himself trapped in New York City where he and some friends have been
competing in a high school academic competition. He must now cope with the
severe flooding and plummeting temperatures in Manhattan. Having taken refuge
inside the Manhattan Public Library, Sam manages to reach his father by phone.
Jack only has time for one warning: stay inside at all costs.
 As full-scale, massive
evacuations to the south begin, Jack heads north to New York City to save Sam.
But not even Jack is prepared for what is about to happen – to him, to his
son, and to his planet.
In INDEPENDENCE DAY Roland
Emmerich brought you the near destruction of the earth by aliens. Now, in THE
DAY AFTER TOMORROW the enemy is an even more devastating force: nature itself.
“It’s an epic tale of survival and heroism with non-stop action and
spectacular visual effects,” says producer Mark Gordon. “This movie
definitely delivers the kind of visual punch audiences expect from Roland
Emmerich.”
 Although Emmerich’s brand of
spectacle is integral to telling the story, he says the movie is not void of the
human element. “No matter how big the effects are,” says Emmerich, “the
heart of the movie is still human drama. The father and son characters played by
Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal are vulnerable, conflicted and loving. That’s
what makes their struggle against this incredible force of nature so exciting.
It’s the universal struggle of Man against Nature. It’s survival against the
odds. Ultimately, it’s the triumph of the human spirit.”
“Fundamentally, this is a
drama about ordinary people who find themselves struggling through extraordinary
circumstances,” says co-screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff. “It’s about a
family trying to survive this ecological disaster. Each family member must rise
to the occasion. A young man becomes a leader; a workaholic father braves
everything to save his son; and a mother chooses to risk her own life to save
that of a little boy. It’s a story about love, suffering and mankind’s
perennial struggle to survive. “And it’s a cautionary tale about what can
happen if we continue to provoke Mother Nature.”
 Twentieth Century Fox’s 1996
blockbuster INDEPENDENCE DAY was pure science fiction; it was not based on a
widely held belief that an alien invasion was imminent. But THE DAY AFTER
TOMORROW offers a scenario that is rooted in real concerns about the state of
our planet. “We pushed the time period in which an ice age could occur for
dramatic purposes,” says Mark Gordon, “but the theory that global warming
could cause an abrupt climate shift is gaining mainstream attention. While
nobody knows what the exact result will be of mankind’s addition of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere, some experts have referred to it as ‘the largest
uncontrolled scientific experiment in history.’”
Call it irony or coincidence
but during the course of making the film, a series of extreme weather events
worldwide contributed to the growing body of evidence that climate change is
already underway. In July 2002, during pre-production, a deadly hailstorm struck
central China. The hailstones were the size of eggs and the storm killed 25
people and left numerous victims with near fatal head wounds. The storm uprooted
trees, smashed car windshields, caused major power outages and destroyed some
buildings in the northern parts of the Henan province.
 The following month, parts of
Europe were ravaged by what became known there as the “Floods of the Century.”
For almost three weeks, torrential rains battered the regions, flooding London’s
subway system, decimating vineyards and olive groves in northern Italy and
sweeping away tourists on Russia’s Black Sea coast. At least 108 people were
killed and tens of thousands had to be evacuated.
In November, just three days
after principal photography began in Montreal, a major outbreak of severe
weather and tornadoes occurred in the United States. A total of 75 tornadoes
touched down in one day, killing 36 people and causing damage in thirteen
states. Additionally, the production suffered through four months of what would
become one of Montreal’s coldest winters on record, with daytime temperatures
topping out at minus 25oC on numerous occasions.
 In an even more eerie example
of life imitating art, the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica fell into the sea in
March 2002, a few weeks after Emmerich and Nachmanoff had written a scene
describing its collapse. “At that time we joked that we had better start
shooting soon or we’d be making a documentary,” says Emmerich.
Given these real-life events
happening around the time of the movie’s planning and shooting, Emmerich,
Gordon and Nachmanoff agreed that THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW should reflect
contemporary scientific thought on global warming as accurately as possible.
 “At the core of any ‘disaster
movie’ there always has to be something factual, something real for the
audience to grab onto,” says Emmerich. “What we already know about global
warming and climate change has provided us with a great fact base for the movie
and that directly affects the believability of the characters and the world that
we have created for them.”
“The
movie departs most radically from real science in the speed at which things
happen,” says Gordon. “When scientists talk about an ‘abrupt’ climate
shift, they’re speaking in terms of five to ten years, not a few weeks. Our
goal was never to fully explore a complex scientific issue in a two-hour movie.
We wanted to make a fantastic summer movie that might – just might – leave
people not only entertained but perhaps a little more enlightened as well.”
In yet another coincidence, the
Pentagon released a report in February 2004 evaluating the national security
risks posed by the threat of global climate change. The report takes seriously
the possibility of a sudden and cataclysmic change brought on by global warming;
in short, the fictional storyline of THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW may not be so
fictional.
To be continued tomorrow...
RR
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