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Day After Tomorrow Director Says He 'Didn't Care Too Much' for End-of-World Movie Don't Look Up

DON'T LOOK UP
DON'T LOOK UP

Andreas Rentz/Getty Images; NIKO TAVERNISE/NETFLIX DON'T LOOK UP; inset: Roland Emmerich

Roland Emmerich, the director behind various large-scale disaster movies, wasn't a big fan of Don't Look Up, the star-studded apocalyptic satire streaming on Netflix.

Emmerich, 66, is known for end-of-the-world spectacles like 2004's The Day After Tomorrow, 1996's Independence Day and 2009's 2012. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss his latest flick Moonfall, the director compared Day After Tomorrow to a more recent environmental disaster movie, Don't Look Up.

"The Day After Tomorrow was ahead of its time, and I'm a little bit worried that Don't Look Up will not do anything. You have to really, really frighten people," he said. "And at the end [of Don't Look Up] it's like … they all sit there and eat and that's it. And then, a very comedic scene with Meryl Streep. I didn't care too much about it, with all the big actors and everything. Naw."

Day After Tomorrow, which stars Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum and Sela Ward, depicts a sudden global storm that puts Earth in a deadly Ice Age.

Don't Look Up stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, Ariana Grande, Jonah Hill, Tyler Perry, Streep and more in a story about impending doom as a planet-killing comet heads directly for Earth. Its director Adam McKay has spoken about the film's ending and wondering if they went "too far" with it.

"How far do you go? Are we going too far? We want to feel sad, but we don't want to be traumatized. Like, I want to tear up, but I don't want to, you know — sob uncontrollably!" he told Variety.

RELATED: Ron Perlman Fires Back at Negative Reviews of Don't Look Up, Calls Criticism 'Sick' and 'Twisted'

Director Roland Emmerich on set
Director Roland Emmerich on set

Claudette Barius/Twentieth Century Fox Director Roland Emmerich on set of Independence Day: Resurgence

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McKay told IndieWire earlier this month that he encourages debate around the movie and likes that audiences are divided.

"It's important to have debate and passionate critics. We're living at a time like no other and stories are part of it. People should be hating them, loving them, going back and forth," he said. "We welcome the negative reviews. I actually think it's really good, that people should be fighting and passionate about it."

In September, DiCaprio told PEOPLE that McKay "has an unparalleled ability to spark conversation with humor and timely stories."

"I knew when I read his script that it was incredibly unique, as it struck an important chord concerning the modern world we live in," he added at the time. "Adam has woven an incredibly timely message about society, how we communicate, our current priorities, and the climate crisis into an absurdly funny yet important movie."

Moonfall, starring Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson, is in theaters Feb. 4.