Netflix has shared the new trailer for Don’t Look Up, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.
The pair play astronomers who attempt to leak intel to the media showing that a giant comet is quickly approaching Earth and will destroy the planet. Writer/director Adam McKay’s latest includes Meryl Streep as the POTUS and Jonah Hill as her chief of staff, and is rounded out with appearances from Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Ron Perlman, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, and Tyler Perry. According to Netflix, Don’t Look Up is “based on real events that haven’t happened—yet.”
While McKay has deemed the film an “absurdist comedy horror,” he told the Los Angeles Times the story is rooted in the current political and cultural climate.
“We were scouting [locations to film] in Boston, and I’m an NBA fan, so I was watching the Jazz game [on March 11, 2020] and the referees said the game was canceled for COVID,” the Oscar-winner told the outlet. “We went home, and then it was like six months of just [being] at home like everyone. … The whole time, I’m like, ‘Do you still make this movie? Like, did the movie just happen in reality?’”
When he went back to reread the script five months later, the man behind Anchorman, Step Brothers, and The Big Short said he “was amazed to see that the script actually isn’t about climate change. It’s about how our lines of communication have been shattered and broken and profitized and manipulated. And that actually the engine of all the farcical comedy is that—and it totally still works.”
Don’t Look Up will release in select theaters Dec. 10 and on Netflix Dec. 24.
