By James Bregman BBC News Online entertainment staff

A tornado devastates the Hollywood sign in The Day After Tomorrow

The accompanying media hype suggests not only that the classic disaster movie genre continues to flourish, but that the cinematic catastrophe stakes are higher than ever.

Whenever Hollywood appears to have run out of apocalyptic scenarios, film-makers pull out yet another instrument for global meltdown.

Early disaster films like Airport and The Towering Inferno focused on a plucky ensemble battling against small-scale tragedies, while the classic Earthquake spent most of its running time building up to that climactic tremor.

Special effects

Recent efforts have been keener to cut to the chase and revel in the doom itself, in all its computer-generated glory.

Special effects have fuelled the fires of the modern disaster film, since it is now possible to create truly convincing scenes of mass destruction.

The prevalence of shocking news footage may be one reason why there are fewer taboos when it comes to depicting fictional catastrophes. These days, it is evidently acceptable - even compulsory - for disaster movies to kill off millions.

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The carnage soared when 1995's Outbreak wiped out most of an American town, but the body-count was trounced a year later, when hostile aliens in Independence Day obliterated most of the world.

Apocalyptic

Despite wistful claims that cinema audiences are becoming more sophisticated, scenes of unbridled destruction still prove a huge draw at the box office.

Like asteroid dramas, Armageddon and Deep Impact, The Day After Tomorrow continues the notion that the modern disaster movie should threaten not simply one city, but the entire planet.

And providing a handful of characters make it out alive, these apolcalyptic tales still manage a determinedly upbeat finale, despite witnessing the death of millions.

'Almost-disaster' films that failed to deliver the goods by allowing their heroes to thwart impending doom, like The Core, have left audiences disappointed.

Traditions

Yet while modern disaster movies are a world away from their ancestors, plenty of staples remain. Tradition still dictates that a leading character - ideally a star like Shelley Winters (The Poseidon Adventure) or Bruce Willis (Armageddon) - will nobly give their life to save others.

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You can also rely on one half of a couple perishing in poignant fashion, and it's a fair bet which cities will bear the brunt of impending tragedy; disaster movies are popular with foreign markets and easily-recognisable landmarks are crucial.

That's why Armageddon's meteor showers struck Paris and Shanghai with such pinpoint precision, and deadly rays from space targeted the Golden Gate Bridge in The Core.

Unluckiest of all is New York City. In recent years alone, it has been swamped with tidal waves (twice), levelled by a giant lizard, menaced by Gremlins, peppered with burning meteors and blown up by aliens.

Global meltdown

In time-honoured fashion, The Day After Tomorrow lays waste to the Big Apple. And like Earthquake and the more recent Twister, nature proves an inspirational tool for global meltdown.

After all, volcanoes, viruses and weather phenomena are global threats that might strike anyone, anywhere - and, in worldwide cinema market, they have no political axe to grind.