Netflix has released a new clip of Don’t Look Up, the upcoming satire disaster movie from Adam McKay that follows two scientists who must inform the world that an Earth-destroying asteroid is coming. Netflix revealed this clip as part of Tudum, its streaming virtual fan event.
In Don’t Look Up, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play astronomers who embark on a media tour to tell people about a meteor that’s expected to crash into Earth. Meryl Streep plays the President of the United States, with Jonah Hill playing her Chief of Staff as they–and the rest of the nation–deliberate over what to do or even acknowledge if there’s a problem. In the newly released clip, DiCaprio and Lawrence nervously get an audience with Streep and Hill, but the administration can’t be bothered to take the astronomers’ concern about a “100% certainty” of disaster seriously. Instead, they quickly downgrade the situation’s status to “sit tight and assess.”
Other big names in the ensemble cast include Rob Morgan, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothee Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, and Scott Mescudi AKA Kid Cudi.
McKay, who has a long history in directing screwball comedies such as Anchorman and Step Brothers, is continuing his streak of somewhat more serious fare that he established with The Big Short and Vice. McKay previously has said Don’t Look Up borrows a trope from Jaws where the mayor denies the existence of a killer shark, despite evidence being all around him. In Don’t Look Up, people don’t want to believe the meteor is coming, even though experts say it is.
“We can’t even talk to each other anymore. We can’t even agree. So it’s about climate change, but at its root [Don’t Look Up is] about what has the internet, what have cell phones, what has the modern world done to the way we communicate,” McKay told Collider.
Don’t Look Up is due out December 24 exclusively on Netflix.
