Roland Emmerich to pay $550million in compensation for "The Day After Tomorrow" fraud:

In light of the leaked document stating that Roland Emmerich, the writer and director of the film The Day After Tomorrow, had paid 11 researchers $300,000 each (about £160,000) to make up reports about climate change that validated his movie several months before it's release, the industry watchdog has ordered him to pay $550million (£300million) in compensation.

After the ruling was made it invalidated the gag clauses on the 11 scientists, most of whom were happy to finally be able to talk about their inner turmoil:

"I had no idea we were going to be promoting his movie. He came to me and said that the world was going to hell and we needed to do something to stop it. He asked me if I could make up some scary but believable theories on climate change and hand my findings to several activist groups who we both knew would believe and promote anything a scientist told them. I feel completely betrayed, I thought I was helping the world for the better."

With the precedent now set, industry watchdogs on both sides of the Atlantic have begun investigating the writers, directors and producers of several big revenue movies that made their money from less then credible climate change data such as Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'. One source stated:

"This is no surprise to us. We had always found it strange that new, very scary climate change movies would come out only months after the theories that substantiated them. Now we have proved the link we have been granted extra powers to investigate further. Fiction in films is fine but when it spills over into the real world as perceived truth then there is definitely a danger to the public."

Due to the obvious logistical constraints, the $550million cannot be refunded to movie goers directly and will instead be used for awareness campaigns to inform the public about the difference between a movie and real life.