Roland Emmerich Pushing 2012 As His Next Movie

February 20, 2008
Source: Variety
by Alex Billington

Filmmaker Roland Emmerich (pictured right) is known for his epic summer blockbusters, having brought us the likes of Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot and The Day After Tomorrow. In just a few weeks his next movie, 10,000 B.C., will arrive in theaters and deliver yet another stunningly epic portrayal of a time past. But what comes after that? Back in August there were rumblings that Emmerich would be remaking the 1966 sci-fi classic Fantastic Voyage, but a report from Variety today tells us that he's shopping around a script for another epic film titled 2012 instead. He's even trying to sell it with a summer 2009 release date set and has everything on the production side ready to go, including budgets and marketing.

Emmerich has been shopping around a spec script for 2012, which means it's more of an idea, an elevator pitch per se (although a bit longer), rather than a completed script. Details are sketchy on what the film exactly entails, but it's said to involve wreaking havoc on the planet in some sort of "apocalyptic" way, which ties in with the belief that 2012 will be the end of the earth. Sources have said that this "project has more going for it than the big idea that studios love" and thus has started a bidding war. Now that the writers strike is over, studios are looking for big summer blockbusters to fill up the summer 2009 season, and 2012 seems to have a unique touch to it that all of the big wigs are going crazy over.

Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow were previously sold in similar ways, where Emmerich and his team pitched the spec script together with a pre-arranged release date and complete production budget. Fox bought both of those previously and they turned into huge hits for that studio. It's very interesting to see a filmmaker sell the film with a release date and marketing plan entirely in place before they even get their hands on it. But with Emmerich, he's proven he can put out hugely successful movies, so that idea could certainly work.

The year 2012 is believed by some to be the apocalyptic end of the earth because December 21st that year marks the end of thirteenth B'ak'tun cycle in the Long Count of the Mayan calendar. Although that doesn't mean much to you or me, many different sources have interpreted this to mean that there will be a major change in world order. You can read more on this over at Wikipedia. We aren't exactly sure what kind of situation Emmerich will present in his film, but we certainly hope it's not another snow storm!

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