20 facts you might not know about 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs'

Sony announced the creation of Sony Pictures Animation in 2002. A year later, they announced their first film slate. One of those movies was Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Due to some creative complications that we will get into — and how long animation takes — the film wouldn’t come out until 2009, and it was the third Sony Pictures Animation movie after Open Season and Surf’s Up.

When Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was announced, the film was going to be directed by the French duo the Brizzi Brothers with a screenplay from Wayne Rice. However, this version would never come to fruition as the directing duo and the screenwriter would all get the boot.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were brought on to work on the script, which they did for a year. Then, citing issues with the story (for a film being adapted from a children’s book with basically no story, remember), Lord and Miller were fired.

After Lord and Miller were fired, new writers were hired. A year later, these writers were fired. In 2006, new writers were announced. Well, new, old writers. Lord and Miller were rehired, this time as the writers and directors. This would mark their feature debut as directors.

Lord and Miller didn’t return to their old script. Instead, they completely rewrote their screenplay. It was in this version they turned the protagonist into a failed inventor who wanted to prove himself to his hometown.

Man, showbiz can be tough. Amy Pascal, the head of Sony, thought their script was funny but still felt it lacked story. Specifically, she didn’t think there was a relationship in the film for audiences to invest in.

Animation takes time, and Lord and Miller couldn’t create new characters to try and salvage their version of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and not get fired for the second time. The character of the guy at the tackle shop had already been created and designed, but he was just an extra at the time. Lord and Miller decided to take this extra and turn him into the father of Flint Lockwood. This was the relationship Pascal was looking for, and Lord and Miller kept the gig.

While working on the film, the creative duo realized the importance of emotional stakes and relationships in movies. However, they had other clearer inspirations for the film. Lord and Miller considered the film an homage to disaster films, citing Twister and Armageddon as inspirations.

Why does Earl, a police officer, wear shorts with his uniform? In an earlier version of the film, he was going to be a cop and a gym teacher. The gym teacher part was nixed, but his shorts were kept as part of the look.

Even when you don’t see him on screen, Mr. T makes his presence known. The actor voices Earl, and they took a couple of opportunities to reference the erstwhile B.A. Baracus in the movie. When Earl jumps through a tortilla chip, he leaves behind a T-shaped hole. Plus, Earl’s hair is the inverse of Mr. T’s. Which is to say, Earl is bald where Mr. T has a Mohawk, but he has hair everywhere else on his head.

Harris was purportedly offered the role of Flint, the lead character in the movie. However, he preferred the role of Steve, which he considered to be a more interesting role to perform. Steve is a talking monkey. Specifically, Steve is evidently a vervet monkey.

Before they became bigwigs in film and television, Lord and Miller were the minds behind the cult MTV show Clone High. One of their interns on that show was named Sam Sparks. They took that name and gave it to Anna Faris’ character in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

The look of Flint Lockwood’s laboratory is based on Wardenclyffe Tower, at least externally. This was the building where the famed inventor Nikola Tesla had a lab for a while.

When Flint plugs his phone into the port of his food-creating invention, there is a label above it that reads “Welcome to Moose.” Putting this together, you get “Welcome to Mooseport.” Welcome to Mooseport is a mediocre, totally forgettable 2004 comedy that nobody would remember if it wasn’t also the last film Gene Hackman made before he retired.

The sound of bone breaking in Cloudy was done via snapping celery, an old trick of Foley artists. What to do about the falling food, though? To approximate the sound of giant hamburgers falling from the sky and smacking into the ground, the production team slapped wet rags against wood. Yum.

For the Spanish-language version of the film, Flint Lockwood’s name was changed to “Flint Loco.” This worked on two levels. Loco and Lockwood sound fairly similar, and with “loco” meaning “crazy” in Spanish, it bolstered his mad scientist vibe. Speaking of foreign-language changes, the Israeli version of the film has a title that translates to “It’s Raining Falafel.”

After all the consternation and firings and re-hirings of Lord and Miller, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs debuted atop the domestic box office. In the end, the movie earned $243 million from a budget of $100 million.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was animated using a new rendering software called “Arnold.” It was the second film made using Arnold after Monster House. The style of Cloudy had some panache to it, and a coffee table art book was released called The Art and Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

After the first film was a hit, a sequel quickly went into production. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was written and directed by new people, though Lord and Miller got a "story by" credit. The film was made a bit cheaper, with a budget of $78 million. However, it actually outpaced the first movie at the box office, netting $274.3 million worldwide. Given that, it’s a little surprising there hasn’t been a third film.

Sony and the Canadian production studio DHX Media collaborated on a cartoon based on the films. The show was a prequel about Flint and Sam in high school. While it only ran two seasons, it was produced on a very aggressive schedule, churning out 104 episodes. The first season aired on Cartoon Network in the United States, but the second season was on CBS All-Access, now known as Paramount+.