Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Theatrical release poster

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a 2009 American computer animated science fiction comedy film produced by Sony Pictures Animation, distributed by Columbia Pictures, and released on September 18, 2009. The film is loosely based on the children's book of the same name by Judi and Ron Barrett. The film features the voices of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Bruce Campbell, James Caan, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Andy Samberg, Mr. T, Benjamin Bratt, Neil Patrick Harris, Al Roker, Lauren Graham, and Will Forte. It was written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
It was a critical and commercial success, earning $243 million worldwide on a budget of $100 million.^[1] A sequel, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, was released on September 27, 2013.

Contents

• 1 Plot
• 2 Cast
• 3 Production
• 4 Music
  • 4.1 Track listing
• 5 Release
  • 5.1 Home media
  • 5.2 Art book
• 6 Reception
  • 6.1 Critical response
  • 6.2 Box office
  • 6.3 Accolades
• 7 Sequel
• 8 Television series
• 9 See also
• 10 References
• 11 External links

Plot

Flint Lockwood is a wannabe-scientist who lives in Swallow Falls, a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that has sardines as the base of its economy. Flint lives with Tim, his widowed technophobic father who misunderstands his son's talent, and his pet monkey, Steve. Despite Flint's zealous enthusiasm, his inventions, including spray-on shoes, a remote controlled television, rat birds, hair-un-balder, and a flying car, all ended in failure. Flint states that his dream was to help his hometown and that Sallow Falls used to be famous for sardines until a popular sardine cannery went out of business permanently.
Flint then invents a machine that transforms water into food, called the "Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator" (FLDSMDFR for short). Flint turns on the FLDSMDFR in his laboratory, but ends up overloading the house's electrical supply. He then decides to power the machine by hooking it up to a nearby power plant. When he turns the machine back on, it ends up rocketing through town, causing various damage, ultimately shooting up into the sky. While recovering from his failure, Flint meets Samantha "Sam" Sparks, a weather intern whose big break was foiled by Flint's actions. Their conversation is cut short when rainbow colored clouds float over the town and begin 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. Swallow Falls (now renamed Chewandswallow) suddenly becomes a successful "food tourism" destination. 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 guilts 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 the FLDSMDFR off and attempts to send a "kill code" to stop the machine, but the mayor destroys the communication device before he can do it. With Flint unable to control the machine, a massive food storm is created which threatens the world. When Flint's father 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 deactivate the FLDSMDFR, with the aid of Sam, her cameraman Manny, Steve and Brent (namesake of the Baby Brent Sardine cannery).
As they approach the machine in the sky, they find that it is now at the core of a giant meatball, where clouds go in the top and a food hurricane goes out the bottom. The machine sends sentient food to attack them. In the chaos, the flash drive with the kill code is sucked by the wind out 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 then goes inside the meatball, finds the machine, and connects the phone to the USB port. To his frustration, Flint discovers that Tim sent him the wrong file, so he is unable to stop the FLDSMDFR. Flint then uses his Spray-On Shoes formula on the machine and causes it to explode. With the machine destroyed, the food storm subsides and everyone is able to return safely to Chewandswallow. Tim finally shows his appreciation for his son and his inventions before 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 that his plans were not well thought out.

Cast

• Bill Hader as Flint Lockwood, an inventor. Hader also did the voice of the "FLDSMDFR" machine.
  • Max Neuwirth as Young Flint Lockwood
• Anna Faris as Samantha "Sam" Sparks, a weather intern from New York City.
• James Caan as Tim Lockwood, Flint's technophobic, widowed father.
• Neil Patrick Harris as Steve the Monkey, Flint's pet Vervet monkey who communicates using a Speak and Spell monkey thought translator.
• Bruce Campbell as Mayor Shelbourne, the gluttonous and egotistical mayor of Swallow Falls.
• Andy Samberg as Brent McHale, an infamous celebrity mascot of Baby Brent's Sardines.
• Mr. T as Officer Earl Devereaux, the town's athletic cop.
• Bobb'e J. Thompson as Calvin "Cal" Devereaux, Earl's son.
• Benjamin Bratt as Manny, Sam's Guatemalan cameraman and a former doctor, co-pilot, and comedian.
• Al Roker as Patrick Patrickson, the anchorman of the weather station.
• Lauren Graham as Fran Lockwood, Flint's mother who died ten years before Flint invented the FLDSMDFR.
• Will Forte as Joe Towne, a redneck citizen of Chewandswallow.
• Peter Siragusa as Rufus
• Angela Shelton as Regina Devereaux
• Liz Cakowski as Flint Lockwood's Teacher
• Neil Flynn as Weather Network News Producer

Production

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. The Brizzi brothers were brought to direct the film, with Wayne Rice adapting the screenplay.^[2] In 2006, it was reported that the film had been helmed by new directors and writers, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.^[3]
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.^[4]
Co-writers and co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher 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.^[5]
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the second film (after Monster House) made using animation rendering software Arnold^[6] and the open source image toolkit OpenImageIO.[7