Don't Look Up Trailer: Adam McKay's Disaster Comedy Makes A Big Impact

Things have been feeling a little apocalyptic for a while, but that doesn't mean Hollywood's going to slow down on apocalypse stories. Honestly, it means they're all the more relevant, and Adam McKay's disaster satire "Don't Look Up" looks to be especially relevant. In the Netflix comedy, an astronomy grad student named Kate (Jennifer Lawrence) and her professor Dr. Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) discover that a comet is on a crash-course with Earth. The comet is a planet-killer, the kind of thing that will wipe out life on Earth shortly after impact. 

Other movies have explored space rocks careening towards our planet, most notably "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" in the 1990s and "Melancholia" in 2011, but this is a much more comedic take on the potential end of the world. 

McKay is no stranger to sharp satire, and "Don't Look Up" won't be any different. When Kate and Dr. Mindy take their concerns to the President (Meryl Streep) and her son/Chief of Staff (Jonah Hill), they laugh off the astronomers concerns. After all, doomsday scenarios have become a dime a dozen for world leaders in 2021, so they're incredulous at best. That means it's up to Kate and Dr. Mindy to spread the word via social media, the 24-hour news cycle, and maybe even a little yelling "the sky is falling!"

It should be interesting to see how DiCaprio and Lawrence do with more comedic fare, as they usually tend towards performing in dramas. Both of them are rocking unflattering haircuts and looking pretty disheveled, which is a fair stretch from their more glamorous looks in films like "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" or "American Hustle." At least DiCaprio already has some rapport with Hill after starring together in "The Wolf of Wall Street," so their banter should be good. 

Here's the official synopsis for "Don't Look Up":

Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), an astronomy grad student, and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) make an astounding discovery of a comet orbiting within the solar system. The problem — it's on a direct collision course with Earth. The other problem? No one really seems to care. Turns out warning mankind about a planet-killer the size of Mount Everest is an inconvenient fact to navigate. With the help of Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), Kate and Randall embark on a media tour that takes them from the office of an indifferent President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic son and Chief of Staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), to the airwaves of The Daily Rip, an upbeat morning show hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry). With only six months until the comet makes impact, managing the 24-hour news cycle and gaining the attention of the social media obsessed public before it's too late proves shockingly comical — what will it take to get the world to just look up?!

"Don't Look Up" crashes onto Netflix just in time for Christmas on December 24, 2021.