How The First Greenland Movie Sets Up Gerard Butler’s Greenland 2: Migration

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Brandon Zachary is a Lead Writer for Screen Rant's New Movie Team. He also writes or has written for Comicbook.com, CBR, That Hashtag Show, Just Watch, and TVBrittanyF. Brandon is an Emerging Screenwriters Semi-Finalist, co-writer of a Screencraft Quarter-Finalist, a seasoned on-screen interviewer, and a MASSIVE nerd. You can reach him at [email protected]

The following contains spoilers for GreenlandGreenland 2: Migration picks up the story from the previous Gerard Butler movie, and here's everything you need to remember from the 2020 disaster film. Released amid the pandemic lockdowns, Greenland still managed to make an impact with audiences, who have been excited to find out the fates of John, Allison, and Nathan Garrity.

The previous film focused on the three of them dealing with an evacuation effort amid a global catastrophe, turning a race against time into a surprisingly somber reflection on morality and mortality. Greenland 2: Migration retains a lot of the disaster movie DNA, but it is more rooted in exploring the world that remains.

What Happened To The Earth Of Greenland?

Gerard Butler with his hand up to cover the sun's rays in Greenland

Greenland took place in a world where the passing "Clarke" comet came too close to Earth, sending fragments into Earth's atmosphere and bombarding portions of the planet — quickly building into an extinction-level event across the globe. While most of humanity was caught in the ensuing chaos of the situation, some pockets of survivors were saved.

This is because of government programs all around the world that have selected certain people to be allowed into massive shelters in remote areas. The real challenge for those select few was reaching the evacuation points and then surviving the trip amid a world bombarded by comet fragments from the sky.

This was the central plot of Greenland, which followed John Garrity and his family amid the fallout of the comets coming down and the race to reach safety. Selected for emergency sheltering, the Garrity family struggles to reunite and eventually comes together on one of the last flights out of North America to Greenland.

Greenland is designated as one of the few places that may be relatively safe on the planet. The climax sees the family reach a bunker just before the largest part of the comet collides with the Earth. This leads to the destruction of most plant and animal life still on the surface.

However, the planet itself is hinted to go through a metamorphosis in the process. This sets up the final moments of the first film, which suggests that the atmosphere has cleared up enough for exploration. Even though it gives the film a touch of bittersweet optimism, it retains the bleak reality of the situation.

However, travel is still extraordinarily difficult, as the distance between survivors and the altered weather patterns of a devastated Earth has created lots of new challenges for the people left on the planet. This carries over into Greenland 2: Migration, which sees the inhospitable conditions only growing worse since the events of the first film.

Where Does Greenland 2: Migration Pick Up From?

Gerard Butler grabbing Roman Griffith Davis by the face while Morena Baccarin looks scared in Greenland 2 Migration

Greenland 2: Migration director explained to Collider that the film takes place roughly 5 to 7 years after the events of the previous film. This has the benefit of reflecting the real-life time gap between the first film (which debuted in 2020) and the sequel coming out in 2026.

While the atmosphere has killed off most people on the surface, it turns out pockets of society have survived in pieces. The film picks back up with the Garrity family in Greeland, doing their best to adjust to their new status quo despite the challenges inherent to their situation.

It also allows Nathan to have grown up slightly, aging him up into a teenager who can be more active in the narrative. A major element of Greenland 2 is exploring the state of the world a few years after the catastrophe, revealing how the ecosystem would react to such a global change.

Some global landmarks have been radically transformed, while the remnants of humanity that have dragged themselves out of caves, tunnels, and bunkers are a far harsher people. A big part of what makes Greenland 2 so compelling is the way it expands the world and highlights how the family continues to face this new world together.

As the Garrity family encounters more survivors and finds out how they've also been struggling to persist, Greenland 2: Migration takes on a more somber edge than the previous film. While Greenland was more of a disaster movie, Greenland 2: Migration is a larger mediation on society after the end.