[4][5] Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi star in the film as pop music power couple Riley Bina and DJ Chello, respectively.

"Just Look Up" starts off as a love song, then transforms into a rallying cry to listen to the scientists' message that humankind hasn't much time left on this planet.

[6] Nicholas Britell read a draft of the script and had talked to the film's director Adam McKay for some time.

During a run-through of the duet with her co-star and Republic Records label-mate Kid Cudi, she began ad-libbing and improvising lyrics to which McKay referred to as "comedic gold".

It’s a power-ballad done anew, all the while being so familiar.”[12] Mitchell Peters of Billboard, wrote the song “finds Grande steering some romantic balladry with a gorgeous tone and open heart, while Cudi takes a few seconds to fully deploy his croon but sounds comfortable when it arrives.“[13] On December 14, 2021, Cudi and Grande appeared on the season finale of American singing competition series The Voice, where they performed the song together live for the first time.

It won the 2022 Society of Composers & Lyricists Award for Outstanding Original Song for a Comedy or Musical Visual Media Production.