Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a 2009 computer-animated film produced by Sony Pictures Animation and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was released on September 18, 2009 and is inspired by the children's book of the same name by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett.
It is Sony Pictures Animation's third theatrical feature, not counting Open Season 2, a direct-to-video film.
Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) is a young inventor who has trouble seeing eye to eye with his technophobic father Tim Lockwood (James Caan), because he invents many things that end up faulty, unwanted, and/or chaotic. His mother (Lauren Graham) always believed he would become great someday until she passed away before Flint graduated school. Flint continues to invent even at the time he should be getting a real job at his father's sardine shop. Because his hometown, Swallow Falls, rests on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the only food everyone can afford are sardines.
Hoping to solve this problem, Flint invents a machine that converts water into food. However, the machine initially fails due to the low amount of electricity. The next day during a rally for the opening of a theme park named Sardine Land by Mayor Shelbourne (Bruce Campbell) and the sardine mascot Brent (a celebrity who has represented the town's sardine products ever since he was a baby, Andy Samberg), Flint sneaks out of his father's shop and uses the electricity from the nearby power station to work the machine. Meanwhile, a cute weather intern, Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), has her big break when she is sent to Swallow Falls to report the events. However, her time is cut short when Flint's machine flies around, destroys a segment of the theme park and flies up in the sky. Blamed by everyone in town, Flint flees to the docks where he meets an emotionally-wracked Sam and instantly falls in love. Sam then realizes it was Flint that ruined her big break, but is interrupted by a large set of purple clouds that covers the town and rains cheeseburgers solving the problem that has been plaguing the town.
Flint invents a communication device that allows people to order what they want to eat, like ice cream for Officer Earl's son Cal's birthday and a huge amount of food for the Mayor to gorge on. The city's name is changed to Chewandswallow, and the mayor tries to generate tourism by inviting cruise ships to the island to eat. Getting to know Sam, Flint brings her on a date to a giant Jell-O mold in the fields. Flint then discovers that Sam was once a nerdy weather forecaster who changed her appearance and outward behavior due to ridicule. Flint, however, states his preference for her previous persona, allowing Sam to feel better about walking into public with glasses and her hair tied with a Jell-O scrunchie given by Flint. Before they can share their first kiss, the Mayor calls Flint to cut the ribbon for the grand re-opening of the town, which was scheduled for the next day.
Later that evening, Flint is confronted by his father, who is unable to admit that he is proud of Flint for what he has done, and worries that the food may not be so good for the people. Flint then discovers that the food is getting bigger before the day that many tourists arrive at ChewandSwallow for a grand re-opening. Flint decides to turn the machine off, but the Mayor (now morbidly obese) persuades Flint not to turn it off, thinking "The Bigger, the Better". Flint agrees and leaves. When the tourists arrive, a spaghetti twister strikes the town, and Flint runs to the lab to turn off the machine, but arrives finding the Mayor ordering a large Las Vegas style buffet, which overloads the machine. The Mayor then destroys the communication device by accident. The food storm roars around the world, threatening to destroy the Earth with giant raining food. Flint grabs a USB flash drive that holds a code that will stop the machine and rebuilds a past invention into a small aircraft. Flint, along his pet monkey Steve, Sam, her cameraman Manny (Benjamin Bratt) and the sardine mascot Brent, give chase after the machine, which has transformed into a giant meatball.
Flint loses the flash drive and calls his father to send the deletion code to his cell phone. Meanwhile, the citizens build sandwich rafts and flee into the ocean now that the city is being flooded by leftover food. The Mayor jumps greedily on the first one, and floats away alone. Flint makes it to the core without Sam and Brent in the meatball and jams the cell phone into the machine. However, his father sent him the wrong document and the machine fights back. Flint then pulls out a spray that imprisoned his feet into rock-solid shoes during his youth and blocks the machine from producing food. Flint falls out of the meatball to his apparent death, followed by the destruction of the machine, while Sam, Brent, Steve, and Manny escape. As the citizens mourn the supposedly dead Flint,he emerges from the sunlight carried by his earlier ratbird creations. His father finally admits, through Steve's thought transmitter, that he is proud of his son, and Flint and Sam finally kiss. Afterwords, during the end credits, everyone lives their new life in a food paradise. At the end of the mild end credits a clip is shown of Mayor Shelbourne clutching the sinking remains of his sandwich raft in the middle of the ocean.