Chris Pratt Will Now Save You From an Actual, Verifiable Climate Disaster You Paid For

I was asked to find an 'engaging' and 'relatable' angle for this month's column on planetary collapse. So here we are. Apparently, the only way I can get you to absorb the latest data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is if I first acknowledge that they’re putting my cleavage on the internet again. I hope the existential dread is worth the clicks.

Amazon MGM Studios has announced its summer 2027 tentpole film, 'Cataclysm: True Story,' starring Chris Pratt. The premise, lauded in trade publications as 'a paradigm shift in immersive filmmaking,' is that there is no script. There are no sets. The film will be composed almost entirely of high-resolution drone and satellite footage from the catastrophic North American heat dome of 2025, the 'atmospheric river' events that submerged half of California last winter, and the smoke plumes from the now-perennial Canadian wildfires. Pratt will be digitally inserted into the footage, heroically pulling a family from a lovingly rendered CGI mudslide or squinting thoughtfully at a real satellite image of a Category 5 hurricane.

This is not entertainment. This is the commodification of mass suffering. While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases increasingly frantic reports—their AR6 Synthesis Report being a masterclass in polite, academic screaming—Hollywood has decided to package our reality as a thrill ride. The film's press release boasts of 'unprecedented realism,' a phrase that would be darkly hilarious if it weren't so sociopathic. They are selling us our own demise, with a charming, bankable star to make the horror palatable.

The irony is, of course, a closed loop of carbon-intensive absurdity. A 2021 study from the Sustainable Production Alliance, which includes Amazon MGM Studios, found that a single tentpole film produces an average of 2,840 metric tons of CO2. That is the equivalent of flying one person from London to New York 2,800 times. This is the carbon footprint required to create a film that admonishes us by turning our climate-fueled tragedies into a two-hour spectacle.

We are living through the consequences of decades of deliberate disinformation and obfuscation from corporations like ExxonMobil, who, as reporting by InsideClimate News revealed, knew about the dire impacts of fossil fuels as early as the 1970s. Their actions, and the inaction of global governments, have locked in a certain degree of warming. The global average temperature anomaly for 2025 was +1.48°C above the pre-industrial average, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. This isn't a plot point. It is a data point. It is the reason people’s homes are now underwater or incinerated. And now, it is the backdrop for a Chris Pratt movie.

So, by all means, buy a ticket. Munch your popcorn. Watch a CGI hero save a CGI family from a very real disaster. It's easier than contemplating the fact that there is no hero coming to save us from the production studios, advertisers, and fossil fuel companies manufacturing this entire nightmare. Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I have a bourbon that needs my immediate and undivided attention.