Don't Look Up · written by Adam McKay · 2021

Backstage, Isherwell receives a photograph of the comet marked “Direct hit.”

Scene 29 of 205 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Linda Dicalio
Kids
Child 2
Peter Isherwell
Executive

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 28 min into a 2:06 film

The story so farBefore scene 29

After PhD candidate Kate Dibiasky discovers a comet on a direct collision course with Earth, she and Professor Randall Mindy try to persuade a politically distracted President, a media-saturated public, and a powerful technology company to stop it before impact.

Scenes 1–7
Kate and Randall work within the familiar routine of astronomy and university research.
Scenes 8–26
They discover the impact deadline and need the government and public to respond, but Orlean refuses immediate action.
Just before
Scene 26
Randall and Kate tell Orlean the comet will devastate Earth, but she delays action until after the midterms.
Scene 27
Oglethorpe and Kate decide to leak the impact evidence to the press as they leave Washington by train.
Scene 28
BASH CEO Peter Isherwell introduces a phone that reads users’ emotions at a technology convention.
Scene 29
This scene

29INT. BACKSTAGE - 20 MINUTES LATER

Isherwell and the children exit to the backstage. A Junior Executive, LINDA, takes their phones.

LINDA DICALIO

Give me the phones they’re not

yours.

KIDS

Bye Mr. Isherwell... Bye Peter.

CHILD 2

I love you, Peter.

PETER ISHERWELL

(ignores the children)

Are we sure the video of the little

girl singing is optimizing our pre-

pubescent sense memory consumer

sector? I find the bird quite

threatening.

EXECUTIVE

We’ll cross check the data on that

for sure.

Linda pulls Isherwell aside.

LINDA DICALIO

Mr. Isherwell, Paul Debent wanted

me to give you this. He got it from

an astronomer friend of his in

Mexico.

She hands him a PICTURE OF THE BLURRY COMET with “Direct hit” handwritten on it.

PETER ISHERWELL

Oh my.