Sony's Cloudy-With•An•Chance-Of Meatballs 001

x***Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs*** is a computer-animated film produced by Sony Pictures Animation based on the 1978 children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett. The film was written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller in their directorial debuts and released September 18, 2009.

The film centers around quirky and aspiring scientist and inventor Flint Lockwood, who develops a machine that can convert water into food. While his invention initially brings joy and whimsical food-filled wonderlands to the town of Swallow Falls, overuse of the machine causes the food to overmutate, creating dangerous storms and natural food disasters. With the help of his friends, Flint must stop his machine in order to save the world.

## Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

### Directed by

Phil Lord
Christopher Miller

## Plot

> Have you ever felt like you were a little bit different? Like you had something unique to offer the world, if you could just get people to see it? Then you know exactly how it felt to be me.
>
> Flint Lockwood

 File:Young Flint Intro.png
From a young age, aspiring scientist Flint Lockwood dreams of making the world a better place. His hometown of Swallow Falls, a tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean whose economy was built on sardines, has fallen on hard times after "everyone in the world realized that sardines are super gross." Forced to eat the sardines they could no longer export, Swallow Falls fell into an uninspired, depressive slump. Flint's goal is to use his passion for invention to create something that would improve the lives of its citizens.
However, in the coming years, every invention, from ***Spray-on Shoes*** to solve the "untied shoes epidemic" to the Flying Car that doesn't fly and the Ratbirds which get loose and bred uncontrollably, causes chaos and catastrophe, causing Flint to be viewed as an outcast in society. Therefore, he grew up isolated from his peers, his monkey lab assistant ***Steve*** being his only friend in the town. However, this doesn't deter Flint, for his next goal is to complete the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator (FLDSMDFR), a machine that can turn water into food, in an effort to expand the town's diet. However, the machine needs a large amount of power, which Flint quickly discovers when he blows all the fuses in his house. His father, ***Tim Lockwood***, is skeptical about Flint's latest endeavor, imploring hi son to work at the family tackle shop *Tim's Bait and Tackle*.
One day, the fame-hungry mayor of Swallow Falls, Mayor Shelbourne, unveils a sardine-themed amusement park called Sardine Land, which would be opened at noon and it would also feature the live appearance of Brent McHale, who became Swallow Falls mascot "Baby Brent"and the opening ceremony provides Flint with the cover he needs to sneak out of the tackle shop and connect the FLDSMDFR to a local substation, but the power overload sends the FLDSMDFR rocketing across town and also slamming a camera into the face of aspiring weatherperson Sam Sparks, humiliating her on national television during her first-ever weather broadcast.

 File:Burger Rain Flint.jpg  After the FLDSMDFR was rocketed into the sky, to Flint's distraught, the giant fish tank that was part of Sardine Land tumbled and began to roll around forcing everyone to scatter. The glass tank was then sent flying which caused Flint and Steve to be trapped within. Flint was then met by a crowd of angry townspeople including Brent, Mayor Shelbourne, and even Tim, who is disappointed by his son's actions.
As the people turn to leave, Flint, in shame, accidentally shatters the giant fish tank, embarrassing himself in front of everyone. Having fled to Swallow Falls' harbor, Flint and Steve hid themselves behind a ladder until Sam Sparks came and accidentally hitting Flint in the eyes.
To Flint's surprise and the awestruck wonder of everyone in Swallow Falls, the FLDSMDFR uses the water from the stratosphere to produce a storm of cheeseburgers, which rain from the sky. The strange and wondrous weather phenomenon gives Sam a second chance at her weather reporting career, and redeems Flint in the eyes of the people who had scorned his inventing for so long. The mayor seizes on the opportunity to market the food weather to a global audience, rebranding Swallow Falls as Chewandswallow.
Flint and Sam bond over their shared passion for science, and after Flint (awkwardly) invites Sam to a Jell-O castle he made for her, they grow even closer as Sam confides that she had been hiding her love for science since she had been teased about her passion since she was a child. Flint encourages her to be herself, considering her to be beautiful with the stereotypically-nerdy glasses and ponytail.
However, as the townspeople get more and more greedy and gluttonous, Flint overburdens the FLDSMDFR, causing the food to overmutate and drastically increase in size. Tim Lockwood expresses concern over the large portion sizes, which Flint interprets as a lack of support from his father, but soon realizes he is right. The mayor, on the other hand, is overjoyed at the increasing amount of food and insists that Flint make a spaghetti dinner for tourists arriving for the town's grand reopening.

 File:Spaghetti Twister.png  The spaghetti dinner turns disastrous when it manifests as a spaghetti tornado, spitting meatballs and oregano across the town, destroying the newly-renovated buildings and causing chaos. Realizing he’s the only one who can shut down the FLDSMDFR, Flint charges through the tornado and heads into his lab, but finds the mayor already there, who accidentally destroys Flint's only method of communicating with the machine before admitting he ordered a Vegas-style all-you-can-eat buffet.
Detecting the scope of the danger using her childhood-wish weather radar, Sam patches through to the Weather News Network's broadcast with the help of her friend and cameraman ***Manny***, warning the world that the storms are only going to get worse and spread across the globe. With no way to communicate with the FLDSMDFR and with the world in imminent danger due to his invention, Flint nearly falls into despair, but his dad encourages him, reminding him that his inventing skills can still help people. Inspired, Flint redesigns the Flying Car. The townspeople are once again at Flint, but Officer Earl reminds them that they’re all to blame for mess, before leading the evacuation. Accompanied by Sam, Manny, Steve, and Flint's childhood bully and former town mascot ***Brent***, he flies into the heart of the storm to destroy the FLDSMDFR using a kill code copied to a USB.

   Upon reaching the FLDSMDFR, they discover it has surrounded itself in a giant meatball-like object made of food and created sentient food creatures for protection. As the group reach the interior, the flash drive is destroyed, prompting Flint to call Tim and instruct him to email the drive's code to his cell phone via his laboratory's computer. Finding the FLDSMDFR, Flint connects his phone with the flash drive's code sent by Tim to it, only to discover that the wrong file was sent. All appears lost until Flint uses his Spray-On Shoes formula on the machine, causing it to explode and destroy the meatball, ending the storm. After surviving the destruction, Flint reunites with Tim, who finally shows appreciation for his son's inventions, and Sam, whom he shares a kiss with.

## Production

### Development

On May 9, 2003, a year after establishment, Sony Pictures Animation announced its first animated slate, including *Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs*, a film adaptation of the book of the same name. The Brizzi brothers were brought to direct the film, with Wayne Rice adapting the screenplay. In 2006, it was reported that the film had been helmed by new directors and writers, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Lord and Miller said later that year that it would be a homage to, and a parody of, disaster films such as *Twister*, *Armageddon*, *The Core*, and *The Day After Tomorrow*.

### Story and script

After a year working on the script, Lord and Christopher Miller were fired for story issues and replaced with new writers, who after a year were also fired. Lord and Miller were then re-hired in 2006. The two completely redid the script, this time with the creative input of their crew. The new draft had the protagonist as a failed inventor who wanted to prove himself to his town. The two were almost fired again after Amy Pascal, then-head of Sony Pictures, criticized the film for lack of story. Although the film succeeded on the comedic front in the animatic stage, Pascal cited the lack of an anchoring relationship in the film as a failure in the story telling. Unable to create new characters and environments to suit the new story demands, the two elevated the character of the tackle shop extra to be the protagonist's father, thereby creating the relationship Pascal had requested. The pair's experience on *Cloudy* taught them two valuable lessons: the power of creative collaboration and the importance of emotion in a story.

### Casting

On September 18, 2008, Variety announced that Bill Hader and Anna Faris had signed on to voice the two lead characters, with James Caan, Bruce Campbell, Mr. T, Andy Samberg, Neil Patrick Harris, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Benjamin Bratt, Al Roker, Lauren Graham, and Will Forte also in the voice cast.

### Animation

*Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs* is the second film after *Monster House* that was made using the animation rendering software Arnold.

## Release

*Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs* premiered on September 12, 2009, at the Mann Village Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The film had its wide release on September 18, 2009, along with a digitally re-mastered release to IMAX 3D theatres.

### Home media

The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and PSP UMD on January 5, 2010Template:Citation Needed in the United States and Canada. A 3D Blu-ray was released on June 22, 2010. It was the first 3D Blu-ray sold individually in the United States.

### Merchandise

In 2010, Burger King released a series of six Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs toys, accompanied by this commercial.

 File:Cloudy burger king toys.jpg
Carl's Jr. also released a series of three toys and a recipe book.

 File:Carls jr cloudy.png
## Reception

### Box office

*Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs* earned a total of $243 million on a reported budget of $100 million. Of the gross, 51%, or $124,870,275, came from the domestic market, while the rest, $118,135,851, from other territories. The film earned $8,137,358 on its opening Friday, and ranked #1 at the box office with a total of $30.3 million for the first weekend. On its second weekend, it remained at #1 with a decrease of only 17%. Documents from the Sony Pictures hack revealed the film turned a profit of $6 million.

## References

1. ↑ Sony Taps Six to Direct Animated Slate | Animation Magazine
2. ↑ It’s Raining………Food? — Slice of SciFi (archive.org)
3. ↑ Rewriting Collective Insights: Phil Lord at TEDxCoconutGrove - YouTube
4. ↑ Hader, Faris spice up 'Meatballs' - Variety
5. ↑ Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - Box Office Mojo

Template:Cloudy With-An•Chance-Of Meatballs