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The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Roland Emmerich. Based on the 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, the film stars 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. A series of extreme weather events usher in global cooling and lead to a new ice age.[2]
Originally slated for release in the summer of 2003, The Day After Tomorrow premiered in Mexico City on May 17, 2004, and was released in the United States on May 28, 2004. A major commercial success, the film became the sixth highest-grossing film of 2004. Filmed in Toronto and Montreal, it is the highest-grossing Hollywood film made in Canada (adjusted for inflation). It received mixed reviews upon release, with critics highly praising the film's special effects but criticizing its writing and numerous scientific inaccuracies.
Jack Hall, an American paleoclimatologist, and his colleagues Frank and Jason, drill for ice-core samples in the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA, when the ice shelf suddenly begins to split away. At a UN conference in New Delhi, Jack discusses his research showing that climate change could cause an ice age, but US Vice President Raymond Becker dismisses his concerns. Professor Terry Rapson, an oceanographer of the Hedland Centre in Scotland, befriends Jack over his views of an inevitable climate shift. When several buoys in the Atlantic Ocean show a severe ocean temperature drop, Rapson concludes Jack's theories are correct. Jack's and Rapson's teams, along with NASA meteorologist Janet Tokada, build a forecast model based on Jack's research. Jack tries to get Becker to consider evacuations in the Northern States, but Becker again refuses.
A massive storm system develops in the northern hemisphere, splitting into three gigantic hurricane-like superstorms above Canada, Scotland, and Siberia. The storms pull frozen air from the upper troposphere into their center, flash-freezing anything caught in their eyes with temperatures below −150 degrees Fahrenheit (−101 degrees Celsius). It is confirmed by Jack that the force of the storm is so strong, and the effects are estimated to be so severe, that following the storm, the entire Northern Hemisphere would be in a new ice age. The weather worsens across the world: Tokyo is struck by a giant hail storm, Los Angeles is devastated by a tornado outbreak, and three helicopters sent to rescue the British Royal family from Balmoral Castle crash in Scotland after their fuel lines and crew freeze when they inadvertently fly into their superstorm's eye.
In New York City, Jack's son Sam, along with his friends Brian Parks and Laura Chapman, participate in an academic decathlon, where they meet a new friend JD. New York is soon caught in the North American storm and the weather becomes progressively more violent, resulting in street flooding, and eventually a massive tsunami-like storm surge inundating Manhattan. This forces Sam's group to seek shelter at the New York Public Library, but not before Laura accidentally cuts her leg. While cellphone communications are down, Sam is able to contact Jack and his mother Lucy, a physician, through a working payphone. Jack advises Sam to stay inside and warm as the storm will only get worse, and promises to rescue him. Rapson and his team perish in the European storm. Lucy remains in a hospital caring for bed-ridden children, where she and her patients are eventually rescued by the authorities.
Upon Jack's suggestion, President Blake orders the southern states to be evacuated into Mexico. The northern half is doomed to be hit by the superstorm, but are warned by the government to seek shelter and stay warm. The Mexicans initially close the border until Blake agrees to cancel all Central and Latin American debt to the USA. Jack, Jason, and Frank make their way to New York against all odds. In Pennsylvania, Frank falls through the skylight of a mall that had become covered in snow and sacrifices himself by cutting his rope to prevent his friends from falling in after him.
In the library, most survivors, as well as those from other structures, decide to head south once the floodwater outside freezes in spite of Sam's warnings. Only a few survivors end up heeding Sam's advice to stay put and burning books to stay warm as the temperatures plunge. Meanwhile, Becker is informed that Blake's motorcade got caught in the superstorm before it can make it to Mexico.
Laura develops blood poisoning from her injury, whereupon Sam, Brian, and JD scour a Russian cargo vessel that had drifted into the city for penicillin, fending off a pack of escaped wolves from the Central Park Zoo. The eye of the North American storm passes over the city, freezing Manhattan solid, but Sam's group make it inside just in time. Likewise, Jack and Jason take shelter in an abandoned restaurant.
Days later, the superstorms dissipate. After finding the civilians frozen in ice, Jack and Jason successfully reach the library, finding Sam's group alive. Jack then sends a radio message to US forces in Mexico.
In his first address as the new president from the US embassy in Mexico, Becker apologizes on The Weather Channel for his ignorance, admits his mistake and sends helicopters to rescue survivors in the Northern States. Jack and Sam's group are picked up in Manhattan, where many people have survived. On the International Space Station, astronauts look down in awe at Earth's transformed surface, now with ice sheets extending across the northern hemisphere, and remarks that the "air never looked so clear".