FILM DESCRIPTION:
Kate Dibiasky, a Michigan State University astronomy Ph.D. candidate, discovers a previously unknown comet. Her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, confirms that it will collide with the Earth in about six months and is large enough to cause a planet-wide extinction event. NASA confirms the findings and their Planetary Defense Coordination Office head, Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, accompanies Dibiasky and Mindy to present their findings to the White House. They are met with apathy from President Janie Orlean and her son and Chief of Staff, Jason.
Oglethorpe urges Dibiasky and Mindy to leak the news to the media, and they do so on a morning talk show. When hosts Jack Bremmer and Brie Evantee treat the topic frivolously, Dibiasky loses her composure and rants about the threat, prompting widespread online mockery. Mindy, on the other hand, receives public approval for his looks. Actual news about the comet's threat receives little public attention and the threat is denied by Orlean's Director of NASA, a top donor to Orlean with no background in astronomy. When Orlean is involved in a sex scandal with her Supreme Court nominee, she diverts attention by 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 tech company BASH 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. The White House sidelines Dibiasky and Oglethorpe, while hiring Mindy as the National Science Advisor. Dibiasky tries 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.
CREDITS:
TM & © Netflix
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill
Director: Adam McKay
Producers: Adam McKay, Kevin Messick
Screenplay by: Adam McKay
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