The kids then go to sleep and dream that they are there with him, helping to rebuild the post-apocalyptic landscape and restore it to where it is livable again, as well as giving the massive amounts of food away to poverty-stricken developing nations and homeless shelters around the world.

Bill Hader and Anna Faris provided the voices of the two lead characters, Flint Lockwood, "a young inventor who dreams of creating something that will improve everyone's life", and Samantha "Sam" Sparks, "a weathergirl covering the situation who hides her intelligence behind a perky exterior".

James Caan, Bruce Campbell, Mr. T, Andy Samberg, Neil Patrick Harris, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Benjamin Bratt, Al Roker, Lauren Graham, and Will Forte are also on the voice cast.

[5] Co-writers and co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller said that it would be a homage to, and a parody of, disaster movies such as Twister, Armageddon, and The Day After Tomorrow,[6] as well as Sony's then-upcoming 2012, released nearly two months later.

Unlike the book, in which a grandfather tells his two grandchildren a bedtime story about Chewandswallow, in the movie an inventor named Flint Lockwood creates a machine that turns water vapor in the atmosphere into food.