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Young Astronomy PhD student Kate Dibiasky is
working with the Subaru Telescope in Michigan
when she discovers a comet passing by near Earth.
Her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, congratulates
her on her findings and after naming the comet
after her, they calculate its trajectory,
coming to the conclusion that the comet
will hit Earth in six months and, because of its
huge size, it will cause planet-wide extinction.
On the edge of panic, they call NASA to inform
them of this discovery, and the head of Planetary
Defense Coordination Office, Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe
tells them to come to D.C. so they can have a
meeting with the president about this issue, which
is now considered classified information. They go
to the White House early in the morning and are
left waiting the whole day without hearing a word
from the president, who is prioritizing taking
care of a scandal involving one of her candidates.
Kate and Randall are sent to spend a night in
a hotel, where they call their loved ones and
try to find comfort in their voices without
being able to tell them what is going on.
Randall calls his wife June and his sons to check
on them, and Kate talks to her boyfriend Phillip,
who works as a journalist for an important
newspaper. The following day, Kate, Randall,
and Teddy finally get to see President Janie
Orlean and the Chief of Staff Jason Orlean,
who also happens to be the president's son.
They do not take their warnings seriously,
saying they are warned about the end of the world
every month with excuses like economic collapse
and loose nukes, so for now, she wants them
to sit and asses until the midterms are over.
Seeing as the White House will do nothing, Teddy
wants them to leak the information to the press,
which could get them in trouble since talking
about classified information is illegal, but it
is still better than dying to a comet. While Sir
Peter Isherwell, tech billionaire CEO of BASH,
also learns of the incoming comet thanks to some
astronomer friends of his; Phillip gets Kate and
Randall an interview with the New York Herald.
They accept to publish their story, especially
when they confirm the data with other scientists
and hear the White House denies ever meeting them,
but first, they want them to appear on
the morning talk show "The Daily Rip",
hosted by Brie Evantee and Jack Bremmer. They
are not taken seriously by the hosts either,
who think they must keep bad news light, and Kate
snaps, getting angry on camera and pointing out
how terrifying the situation is before storming
off. Randall does stay to finish the interview,
and after they are done, Brie invites
him to have drinks with her later.
Afterward, The New York Herald's marketing team
shows them the results of their presentation. The
singer that appeared before them talking about her
break-up had more mentions on social media, Kate
has become a meme as an angry lady, and Randall
is seen as extremely handsome for a scientist,
but nobody cares about what they had to say.
The newspaper decides to cancel their support,
claiming Nasa said the data is not good enough,
but they quickly realize the head of NASA, who
is not even an actual astronomer, is one of the
president's donors and working under her agenda.
To make matters worse, Phillip takes advantage of
Kate going viral and writes an article about how
he used to sleep with her, which she accepts as a
break-up; and Randall can not keep himself out of
social media, arguing with anybody that questions
his scientific knowledge and conspiracy theorists.
When the president finds herself as part of a
bigger scandal involving some intimate pictures
of her private parts, she sends the FBI to bring
Kate, Randall, and Teddy to her office again and
apologizes for having ignored them. Kate quickly
picks up on the fact they are doing this just
because they are afraid to lose the midterms, but
accepts to help anyway because getting to stop
the comet is the most important priority at the
moment. The president makes a national broadcast,
announcing the comet is real and that they have a
plan to destroy it: they will launch a spacecraft
that can strike the comet using nuclear weapons.
Despite Randall's opinion that this should be a
mission guided by remote technology, Janie chooses
General Benedict Drask to pilot the spacecraft,
because she thinks having a hero as the image of
their plan will help people cope with the news.
Janie and Randall begin appearing in all kinds
of tv shows and magazine covers as the event
goes viral on the internet, finally getting the
attention it deserves. After appearing on "The
Daily Rip" again, Randall and Brie end up sleeping
together while Teddy and Kate argue with comet
deniers on a conservative show. The day of the
launch comes, and the event is broadcast globally.
The spacecraft successfully takes off, but General
Drask's microphone is quickly muted because he
keeps saying incredibly bigoted things on camera.
Everyone is ready to celebrate the fact the comet
will be gone soon, but when Isherwell arrives
and talks privately to the president, they are
shocked to discover the spacecraft is coming back:
Janie has canceled the mission. Some hours later,
while the world is still trying to understand
what happened, Randall is assigned as Chief
Science Advisor to the White House and brought to
an emergency cabinet meeting while Teddy and Kate
are left behind. It turns out the reasons why they
canceled the mission is because Isherwell, who is
also one of the president's donors, has discovered
that the comet is composed of trillions of dollars
worth of rare-earth minerals that technology
manufacturers use in objects like phones, and
they have been running short of them because China
owns most of the mines. The plan is to send some
drones to fragment the comet and let those smaller
fragments fall into the ocean to be mined later.
Randall does not agree with this, especially
when he realizes that the technology Isherwell
is going to use has not undergone scholarly
peer review and every scientist that tried
to speak against it has been silenced,
but the matter is out of his control now.
After the meeting, he gets together with Kate and
Teddy in a bar and tells them all about Isherwell.
Some of the people overhear them and Kate decides
they deserve to know the truth, so she announces
loudly for everyone to hear that the president
will allow the comet to hit the planet so rich
people can get even richer. This incites a series
of riots around the city, so the FBI arrests
Kate and charges her with sharing classified
information and damage of private property,
but they agree to let her go if she signs a deal
where she agrees not to talk about the subject in
public or media anymore and to get off the grid,
which Kate obviously accepts and returns to her
little hometown in Illinois. Getting her old life
back is not easy, since her parents will not take
her back because they support the government
and do not want any traitors in their house.
She begins working as a cashier at a
supermarket where he meets Yule and his friends,
who admire her and invite her to hang out with
them. After discovering they have been stealing
from the market and letting them go anyway
because she does not care anymore considering
the end of the world is coming, Kate accepts to
join them, beginning a relationship with Yule.
Meanwhile, Randall continues to work for the
president, thinking that is the only thing he
can do to help the planet in some way, and
has an ongoing affair with Brie. This blows
up on his face when one evening, the two of them
return to their hotel room and find June there,
waiting to surprise her husband. Randall does
not even apologize, just tries to make up some
excuses, so June throws his pill bottles at
him before leaving for good. After having an
argument with Isherwell about his faulty science
and being told algorithms say he will die alone,
Randall appears on "The Daily Rip" and finally
loses control. Furious, he yells on national
television and calls everyone out for not being
more worried about the comet, which people had
started to believe is not real; he also points out
how Isherwell is shutting up all scientists that
do not agree with him, that the president lied and
that the whole administration has lost its mind.
The FBI catches him after this and offers him the
same deal they gave Kate, so Brie breaks up with
him. Sometime later, Randall is driving back to
Michigan and Kate is hanging out with Yule when
they both look at the sky and see the same thing:
the comet is finally close enough to be visible by
the naked eye. The two of them record themselves
with it and ask the world to see it, starting a
movement called "Look Up" that millions of people
around the world join and make posts about on
the internet. Randall even starts appearing on tv
again, calling the government out for their awful
plans, and even gaining the support of two famous
singers that write a special "Just Look Up" song.
This causes Janie to retaliate with her
own movement called "Don't Look Up",
which is supported by millions of conservative
voters and conspiracy freaks that believe her when
she says Randall only wants them to be afraid and
lose their freedom. Riots and protests take over
the streets while Russia, India, and China work
together to send their own spacecraft to stop the
comet, but their launch fails and the spacecraft
explodes. As the comet gets even closer and the
deniers finally start catching on the lies,
Randall takes Kate and Yule grocery shopping
then drives them back to his hometown so they can
spend their last day together as a family. Under
these extreme circumstances, June decides to take
him back after admitting she cheated on him back
in college as well, and Teddy joins them shortly
after as well. All of them have dinner together,
sharing anecdotes and sending one last prayer to
god while waiting for the comet to strike. The
night of the launch, while waiting to get started,
Janie asks Isherwell what the algorithms say her
death will be like, and he responds she will
be killed by a bronteroc, whatever that may be.
The spacecraft takes off and they lose some of
the drones, but Isherwell anticipated there was
a margin for error and claims everything is fine.
However, he is incredibly wrong, and the rest of
drones explode as soon as they make contact with
the comet. Knowing they will be dead for sure now,
Isherwell and Janie leave the premises to join
other millionaires on a secret spaceship designed
to keep its passengers alive cryogenically
so they can flee Earth before doom strikes.
Completely forgetting about her son, Janie
calls Randall and offers him a place for him
and his wife, but he turns it down, wanting to
stay with them until the end. People around the
world cling to their loved ones as the comet
hits Earth and destroys life as we know it.
The only survivor to come out from under the
ruins is Jason, who immediately celebrates
his life by taking a selfie. Twenty-two
thousand seventy hundred forty years later,
the ship with millionaires finally finds a planet
with an atmosphere similar enough to Earth's
for them to live in. Men and women are woken up
from their cryogenic sleep and explore the area,
and when Janie sees a beautiful new
animal and tries to approach it,
she is attacked by it, effectively getting killed
by a bronteroc as predicted by the algorithms.
