Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (film)

Flint Lockwood is a wannabe-scientist who lives in Swallow Falls, a fictional tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that has sardines as the base of its economy, but the Baby Brent Sardines cannery shut down due to worldwide disgust of sardines as food, which was all the residents had to eat from then on. Flint lives with Tim, his widowed technophobic father, and his pet monkey, Steve. Despite Flint's enthusiasm, his inventions, including spray-on shoes, a flying car, a monkey thought translator, hair "un-balder", a remote-controlled TV, and rat birds, all end in failure.

One day, Flint invents a machine that transforms water into food called the "Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator" (FLDSMDFR). Flint turns on the FLDSMDFR in his laboratory, but ends up overloading and subsequently shorting out his house's electrical supply. He then decides to power the machine by hooking it up to a nearby transformer. When he turns the machine back on, it ends up rocketing through town, destroying Sardine Land (a park conceived by the mayor) before ultimately shooting up into the sky. While recovering from his failure, Flint meets Samantha "Sam" Sparks, a weather intern whose big break was ruined by the incident. Their conversation is curtailed when brightly colored clouds float over the town and began to rain cheeseburgers.

The town rejoices in their renewed food choices, and Flint creates a communication device to send orders to the machine and order it to create different types of food. As a result, Swallow Falls (now renamed Chewandswallow) suddenly becomes a successful "food tourism" destination. Flint and Sam grow closer and Sam opens up to Flint about her bullied past and how she felt like she had to hide who she truly was: a “nerd”. Flint encourages her to be herself because she’s beautiful just the way she is and the two almost kiss. Everything is going well until the townsfolk start greedily requesting food from Flint's machine. Flint notices that the food is beginning to grow larger in size. Although he is concerned that the food is starting to "over mutate", the now morbidly obese mayor sees it as profitable for him and the city, and guilt trips Flint into continuing to make food rain.

Citizens and worldly tourists in Chewandswallow are blissful until suddenly a large tornado formed of spaghetti and meatballs threatens the town. Flint rushes to his lab to turn off the FLDSMDFR by sending a "kill code" to stop the machine, but the mayor, while trying to stop him by throwing a giant radish at him, accidentally destroys the communication device after ordering a Vegas-style all-you-can-eat buffet (VSAYCB). Now unable to control the machine, the FLDSMDFR creates a massive food storm which threatens the entire world, and colossal food downpours terrorize various cities and their landmarks. Flint gives up and loses hope; however, Tim encourages him to fix the mess. Flint gains self-confidence, places the kill code in a USB flash drive, and builds a new flying car to reach and destroy the FLDSMDFR, with the aid of Sam, her cameraman Manny, Steve and Brent (namesake of the Baby Brent Sardines cannery).

As they approach the machine in the sky, they find that it is now serving as the core of a giant meatball asteroid which it created, where clouds go in the top and large food storms comes out the bottom. The machine sends living food to attack them as the flash drive with the kill code flies out of the window.

Back at Chewandswallow, the citizens and tourists escape while the last leftovers fall. Mt. Leftovers collapses, causing an avalanche of food that destroys the town. Despite the avalanche ravaging Flint's lab, Tim manages to re-send the kill code to Flint's cell phone from there. Flint, Sam and Brent then go inside the meatball and Brent gets eaten by a roast chicken; becoming Chicken Brent. Sam lowers Flint down a tunnel covered in peanut brittle, until she gets cut and her face and arms begin swelling up because of her allergy to peanuts. Flint instructs Brent to take Sam back to the plane and get her a shot but Sam refuses to let Flint go. They two confess their attraction for each other before Flint selflessly cuts the rope and plummets down. There, he finds the machine, and connects the phone to a port. To his horror, Flint discovers that Tim accidentally sent him the wrong file, which is a funny cat video, so he is unable to stop the FLDSMDFR. Instead, Flint uses his Spray-On Shoes formula on the machine, causing it to explode, seemingly killing him. With the machine destroyed, the food storm subsides and everyone is able to return safely to Chewandswallow. Flint is revealed to have survived the explosion and Tim finally shows his appreciation for his son and his inventions and Flint and Sam celebrate with a kiss.

Meanwhile, the obese mayor is seen stranded in the middle of the sea, having eaten nearly all of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich boat, while muttering to himself that his plan was not well thought out.

• Bill Hader as Flint Lockwood: a young, timid, unsuccessful but determined inventor and Sam's love interest.
  • Max Neuwirth as young Flint Lockwood.
• Anna Faris as Sam Sparks: a formerly nerdy weather intern from New York City and Flint's love interest. She develops a severe allergic reaction to anything peanut-based.
• Neil Patrick Harris as Steve: Flint's sugar-addicted pet monkey who can communicate through a speak and spell thought-translating device.
• James Caan as Tim Lockwood: Flint's desperate but caring technophobic fisherman father.
• Bruce Campbell as Mayor Shelbourne: the corrupt, greedy and selfish mayor of Swallow Falls. Unhappy with his status as a small time mayor, he sees Flint as his route to greater success. He becomes obese through constant eating.
• Andy Samberg as "Baby" Brent McHale: the arrogant and dim-witted mascot of Baby Brent's Sardines and Flint's former rival.
• Mr. T as Officer Earl Devereaux: the town's athletic cop and Cal's father.
• Bobb'e J. Thompson as Calvin 'Cal' Devereaux: Earl's young son.
• Benjamin Bratt as Manny: Sam's Guatemalan cameraman and former doctor, comedian, and pilot.
• Al Roker as Patrick Patrickson: the anchorman of the weather station.
• Lauren Graham as Fran Lockwood: Flint's deceased mother who had always believed in her son and always expressed it unlike her husband Tim.
• Will Forte as Joe Towne: a bearded redneck citizen of Swallow Falls who appears on numerous occasions throughout the film.
• Angela Shelton as Regina Devereaux: Earl's wife and Cal's mother.

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.[8] In 2006, it was reported that the film had been helmed by new directors and writers, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.[9]

After a year working on the script, they 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 a 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.[10]

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.[11] 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.[12] Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the second film after Monster House that was made using the animation rendering software Arnold.[13]

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the soundtrack to the film of the same name, released under Sony Pictures Entertainment on September 15, 2009. The music of the film and this album are both credited to be composed and produced by American composer Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs premiered on September 12, 2009, at the Mann Village Theatre in Los Angeles, California.[6] The film had its wide release on September 18, 2009, along with a digitally re-mastered release to IMAX 3D theatres.[14]

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (video game), based on the film.

Real life food spill disasters

• Boston Molasses Disaster
• Honolulu molasses spill
• London Beer Flood

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• Official website
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs on IMDb
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs at AllMovie
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs at Rotten Tomatoes
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs at Metacritic
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs at Box Office Mojo