Friday, November 13

• Roland Emmerich Teases a Two-Part Sequel to Independence Day

  Talking to MTV, 2012 director Roland Emmerich offered up a few more tantalizing tidbits about his concept for a sequel to his 1996 vision of the end the world, Independence Day. Whether it will actually ever be produced still seems to hinge on whether he can get Will Smith on board, but if it does, the master of disaster is, as usual, thinking big:

  What we want to do in the next – it's actually two movies – we want to do a bigger arc.

  As for the plot, he explains, there is no script yet, but:

  The idea is just to continue the story and actually I don't know how many years ago this was — twelve, thirteen, fourteen years ago — and just continue where it ended ... the story will stay firmly on the planet. It's always about earth and that earth gets invaded.

  He's even toyed around with a title for the project: ID4-ever parts I and II.

  
  

  Posted 11/13/2009 by Bill

  Related: Roland Emmerich | Will Smith | Independence Day | Independence Day 2

Thursday, November 12

• 2012 Reviews

  Advance buzz for director Roland Emmerich's 2012 has not been very good, but it seems that if you don't take his third blow-up-the-world pic too seriously, it isn't bad.

  "This is fun. 2012 delivers what it promises, and since no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else, it will be, for its audiences, one of the most satisfactory films of the year."

  — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

  "...God forgive me, but I enjoyed the nerve-racking silliness of this newest, loudest exercise in destruction."

  — Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

  "If you rolled every disaster movie into one spectacular package, you would wind up with something close to 2012, Roland Emmerich's latest apocalyptic fantasy."

  — Stephen Farber, Hollywood Reporter

  "On any level other than as sheer visual sensation, 2012 is a joke, for the simple reason that it has no point of view; the film offers no philosophical, metaphysical, intellectual and certainly no religious perspective on the cataclysm, just the physical frenzy of it all."

  — Todd McCarthy, Variety

  "It goes without saying that people do not watch Godzilla movies for their human protagonists' exhibition of bravery in the face of certain peril but rather to enjoy said peril. They also don't go to disaster movies asking to be browbeaten by a hack director with an obscene amount of money and an incredible special-effects crew."

  — Simon Abrams, Slant Magazine

  
  

  Posted 11/12/2009 by reelz

  Related: Roland Emmerich | 2012

Tuesday, November 3

• What the 2012 Apocalypse Won't Destroy

  From the trailers and sneak peeks we have seen so far, it sure does look like everything goes in 2012. Buildings collapse, tidal waves wash over the mountains, the earth cracks open, and fire rains down from the skies. The most famous monuments around the world are spectacularly destroyed, and religious icons in particular seem to take it on the chin.

  Not a fan of organized religion, director Roland Emmerich rips apart sacred sites with gleeful abandon. The Vatican gets it, from the crack running right down the center of the celling of the Sistine chapel to St. Peter's Basilica rolling over and crushing worshipers. The iconic statue Christ the Reedemer in Rio de Janeiro crumbles, and a Buddhist temple high in the mountains is reclaimed by the sea. He stops short at Islamic monuments, though.

  Originally, he confesses, he wanted to to destroy one of Islam's holiest sites as well: the Kaaba, a cube-shaped building in Mecca that is the focus of of the Islamic pilgrimage called the Hajj. But, he explains to Sci-Fi Wire, cooler heads ultimately prevailed:

  Well, I wanted to do that, I have to admit. But my co-writer Harald said, "I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie." And he was right. ... We have to all ... in the Western world ... think about this. You can actually ... let ... Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it's just something which I kind of didn't [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out.

  
  

  Posted 11/03/2009 by Bill

  Related: Roland Emmerich | 2012

Monday, November 2

• Moviemakers Toy with True Believers in 2012

  As Roland Emmerich prepares to end the world in a cascade of disasters for 2012, some true believers are complaining that he's putting too negative a spin on what could be key date in human evolution.

  According to Everything Long Beach, twenty-eight cities around the globe are hosting "counter-screenings" to explore the positive transformations that might be expected when the Mayan calendar runs out of days on December 21, 2012. The unlikely title of these conferences is a nod to Dr. Strangelove — 2012: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dimensional Shift.

  Not that moviemakers mind, of course. Not only was this sort of speculation about 2012 a source of inspiration for the movie, the studio is even funding junkets for one of its chief prophets. New York Magazine reports that, as part of its attempts to heighten the buzz around the movie, the studio is providing financial backing for a conference of 2012-ologists at Yellowstone (which the movie destroys) even though attendees are for the most part describing the upcoming movie as "counter-productive."

  Headlining the conference is 2012 guru and psychedelic drug advocate Daniel Pinchbeck, who is described as "equal parts Jesuit and Jim Morrison." The inspiration perhaps for the movie 2012's own Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), who continues to deliver his doom-laden guerilla broadcasts from the borderlands between fact and fiction at thisistheend.com.

  
  

  Posted 11/02/2009 by Bill

  Related: Woody Harrelson | Roland Emmerich | 2012

Tuesday, October 27

• Owning Up to 2012's Roller Coaster Ride

  It appears the producers can't quite commit to what they have done with 2012. All the major public promotions and sneak peeks have featured a cascade of overlapping and over-the-top disasters bordering on apocalypse porn. A wild ride for sure, but not too heavy on the characters and the plot.

  Nonetheless, it's not just about the CGI, insists 2012 co-writer/co-producer/composer Harald Kloser, in an interview with Film Journal:

  The disaster is primarily the background for strong emotional stories of regular people. You know, we have John Cusack, Oliver Platt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover — actors with higher standards than "Run! Go! Watch out! Duck." All those brilliant actors have accepted to be in our movie because the characters in the story were appealing to them. At least, that's what they told me!

  ...People see explosions and buildings collapsing and earthquakes, but that's only the stage, the canvas for very intimate and very private stories and very deep characters, which is what [director Roland Emmerich] and I — I can speak for him here — are most proud of.

  Hmm. Maybe so, but not much evidence of that appears in the footage released so far. Strip away the doom-laden canvas — as someone did in an unofficial "actor's version" of an extended clip from the movie — and the humanistic aspects of the movie start looking more than a little thin.

  In any case, there is no hesitation in the three TV spots for the movie that have just started making the rounds. It all disaster, all the time, remixed for your viewing pleasure. And for those of you who prefer your apocalypse set to music, Sony has released a video of a pop song by Adam Lambert that is featured in the movie. Buildings collapse, meteors strike, but he bravely sings on.

  
  

  Posted 10/27/2009 by Bill

  Related: Chiwetel Ejiofor | Danny Glover | John Cusack | Roland Emmerich | Oliver Platt | Harald Kloser | 2012

Monday, October 26

• NASA Worries that Audiences May Take 2012 Too Seriously

  Well it's not actually 2012 the movie that's got NASA worried. It's how it's being promoted. The studio has pulled out all the stops for the viral marketing campaign, and a lot of the promotions look a little too much like real news. And of course the whole idea for the movie came from a supposed Mayan doomsday prediction that some people have apparently been taking just a little too seriously.

  The movie's interlinked network of realistic-looking websites and blogs — not to mention TV commercials — has been raising the hackles of prominent science bloggers for a while. And NASA scientist David Morrison, whose online column "Ask an Astrobiologist" has been deluged with questions about doom in 2012, has decided to fight back with a point-by-point rebuttal. He patiently explains that, despite the cascade of apocalyptic imagery director Roland Emmerich is preparing unleash upon us, there is in fact no scientific evidence that it's all going to end in 2012. We can all relax now?

  
  

  Posted 10/26/2009 by Bill

  Related: Roland Emmerich | 2012

Tuesday, October 13

• Roland Emmerich Eyes Independence Day 2

  He may end the world with the 2012 apocalypse, but Roland Emmerich sure seems to have a lot of ideas for what he might be doing afterwards. Just the other day, he was talking up his ideas for filming Isaac Asimov's sci-fi classic Foundation, not to mention the who-really-wrote-Shakespeare's-plays mystery he still has in the the works. Now, despite a pledge to stop destroying the world, he's mentioning the possibility of a sequel to the most successful of his disaster flicks, Independence Day.

  The real question, though, is why the studio didn't greenlight a follow-up right after the 1996 original scored such a serious hit at the box office. After all, it's not as if the studios are actually shy about making sequels. Emmerich told the Latino Review he has the idea for a follow up, but the sticking point, apparently the whole time, has been Will Smith:

  Dean Devlin and I are still set to make a sequel, likely because we've found some sort of idea and we approached FOX and FOX has not quite figured out how to incorporate Dean's and my deal, and Will's [Smith] deal. Will wants to do it in some sort of a package they can live with. So it's just been in negations now since forever, and naturally FOX says, "Why don't you do it without Will Smith?" I said Will is essential for us, for this movie and actually for the audience, too. And, so, it's in limbo and lately the studios are fighting.

  He goes on to emphasize that they already have a "really good great story, a very cool one" thought up, if only the financial end of things could be worked out.

  
  

  Posted 10/13/2009 by Bill

  Related: Roland Emmerich | Will Smith | Independence Day | Independence Day 2

Saturday, October 10

• Roland Emmerich Confronts the Challenges of Adapting Asimov's Foundation

  With his world-destroying phase about to come to a conclusion when 2012 hits theaters next month, director Roland Emmerich has begun turning his attention to other projects. One of the most intriguing is an adaption of Issac Asimov's sci-fi classic Foundation. Long considered unfilmable, it started out as a series of short stories without a continuous set of characters. This eventually morphed into a high-concept trilogy that transports the drama of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire onto a galactic stage.

  Talk about challenging. But Emmerich tells Collider that he thinks he's figured out how to do it while avoiding the mistakes of that other high-profile Asimov adaptation, I Robot:

  Well I was interested in Asimov before and I think with I, Robot they changed everything and fans kind of hated the movie so I didn't want to do that. On the other end, The Foundation is a similar problem in that you have all these short stories and then they were combined into a book and so in a way there is not one character and I spoke with Rob [Rodat, writer of Saving Private Ryan] and he said we have to consolidate the characters and that's what we did and it worked really, really well in the context and I think if Asimov would have conceived this as a science fiction trilogy or series from the very beginning, he would have done that too but he didn't so I think in spirit it's totally Foundation but has consolidated characters that go through the three movies.

  The script is still a work in progress, so Emmerich still hasn't laid eyes on it himself, but Rodat is really talking it up and has promised to get him a copy before 2012 comes out.

  
  

  Posted 10/10/2009 by Bill

  Related: Roland Emmerich | Robert Rodat

Wednesday, October 7

• A Tidal Wave Primer from 2012

  Nearly all of the scenes from 2012 that have been teased so far have been way over the top, few more so than the iconic image of waves washing over the Himalayas. Now a new featurette goes behind the scenes with director Roland Emmerich and the visual effects team, not so much to explain how they made the waves, but to giddily recount what an exciting challenge it was creating something so unbelievably huge. Everyone involved really does seem to be having an awful lot of fun destroying the world. Along the way, we get some interesting new snippets from the movie, including a glimpse of what a worldwide chain of tsunamis might look like on a global weather monitor.

  Despite the big-name actors — John Cusack, Woody Harrelson — involved in 2012, clearly most of the energy going into the movie is all about the visual effects. And really, what else would you expect from the director who gave us the Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day?

  Just in case you have any lingering doubts, check out the "actors version" of the extended disaster sequence released the other day. It edits out all of those distracting special effects, so you can concentrate on the plot and the dialogue. Still, it does look like this movie is going to be a pretty entertaining roller-coaster ride.

  
  

  Posted 10/07/2009 by Bill

  Related: John Cusack | Woody Harrelson | Roland Emmerich | 2012

Thursday, October 1

• California Collapses in Extended Clip from 2012

  "California is going down," shouts a crazed John Cusack at the opening of a five-minute clip from 2012. And he's not kidding. One thing we see for sure, even more than in the trailer, is just how over the top director Roland Emmerich is willing to push things for his cinematic multi-pocalypse.

  To call it a roller coaster ride simply doesn't do it justice. Streets crack and dissolve, skyscrapers collapse, and the land slides into the sea. Yet, Cusack and his party survive, always just a few seconds ahead of the hand of doom.

  It's amazing eye candy without any real sense of the horror that might ensue from an actual disaster of that magnitude. Despite the colossal scope of the catastrophe, there are almost no signs of death or human suffering. It is a clean disaster and one played largely for thrills — and at times for laughs. The out-of-control cement trunk might be the bigger threat, but the giant donut shop sign rolling across the road is a lot more fun.

  
  

  Posted 10/01/2009 by Bill

  Related: John Cusack | Roland Emmerich | 2012

Thursday, September 24

• Photos Herald a New Wave of Promotion for 2012

  The end of days is going to be very thoroughly marketed. Sony is planning a big new promotional push for Roland Emmerich's over-the-top muti-pocalypse flick 2012.

  A series of recently released stills from the movie is only the first wave, but it's an interesting one. We get a first look at Danny Glover as the president and a crazed-looking Woody Harrelson (aka Charlie Frost, Apocalypse Prognosticator) creeping around with binoculars, along with more glimpses of the collapse of civilization.

  It's the next wave of marketing that promises to be the real tsunami though. The studio has announced that it is planning to air a two-minute clip from the movie simultaneously on nearly all broadcast and cable outlets between 10:50 and 11 p.m ET/PT on October 1st. It should be quite the tease. The scene is a cliff-hanger, and viewers will have to log on to fancast.com or Comcast On Demand in order to see its conclusion in an extended five-minute sequence.

  
  

  Posted 09/24/2009 by Bill

  Related: Danny Glover | Woody Harrelson | Roland Emmerich | 2012

Tuesday, September 8

• Driving off the Plane in New Clip from 2012

  In Roland Emmerich's 2012, it's not just the cascade of end-of-the-world disasters that's over the top. It's the escapes as well. In a new clip from the movie, we learn about some of the finer points of driving away from an impending plane crash.

  Along the way we get a look at John Cusack in action, but not exactly in charge. In the movie, he plays an interpreter of ancient Mayan prophesies — not quite the skill set needed in this scene, though. Hint: you'd better know your Bentley.

  
  

  Posted 09/08/2009 by Bill

  Related: John Cusack | Roland Emmerich | 2012

Thursday, August 27

• New International Trailer for 2012

  When the world ends, it will have Japanese subtitles — this week at least.

  Sony has released a new Japanese trailer for Roland Emmerich's mega-apocalypse flick 2012. Even more eye candy for those entranced by well-choreographed scenes from the collapse of world civilization. This time we also get a bit more "I told you so" from the crazed prophets of doom, with a shot of a sign warning that the end is near and some doom-laden voiceover from Charlie Frost, Apocalypse Prognosticator (Woody Harrelson), who looks to be one of the more entertaining characters in the movie.

  There's no actual footage of him here, but Harrelson has been kicking up quite a storm online and in character with intermittent video rants patiently explaining that there is no point planning past 2012. All in all, a good reminder that Emmerich aims to take the edge the end of days with a dash of humor and irony.

  
  

  Posted 08/27/2009 by Bill

  Related: Woody Harrelson | Roland Emmerich | 2012

Monday, July 27

• Director Says 2012 is a Noah's Ark Story

  

  It was already obvious from the trailers that 2012 is going to be one of the most over-the-top disaster films ever made, and four minutes of additional footage shown at Comic-Con did little to dispel that impression. On the contrary — as one observer over at /Film put it, there's "more destruction in that four-minute sequence than in the entire movie Independence Day." This apocalyptic roller-coaster ride provoked an amusingly appropriate response during the Q&A, as director Roland Emmerich was asked why he hated the world so much. Without missing a beat, he replied:

  I love the world! I destroy it so much because I love it so much!

  Hmm. In any case, he says it's not just about the end of the world anyway.

  It's really a retelling of Noah's ark, a modern retelling. For me it's not only a disaster movie. Disaster movies have to have another extra element that makes it special. The whole third act is more a different kind of movie. It's about who will survive in the arks.

  Maybe so, but there sure is an awful lot of destruction along the way; giant swaths of destruction with a great deal of glee and gusto.

  
  

  Posted 07/27/2009 by Bill

  Related: Roland Emmerich | 2012

Thursday, July 23

• 2012 Is the End ... of Roland Emmerich's Apocalyptic Phase

  For his final apocalypse, director Roland Emmerich says he's thrown restraint to the winds. Now restraint isn't a word most people would associate with the man who so spectacularly vaporized the White House in Independence Day and flash-froze the planet to an ice cube in The Day After Tomorrow. Nonetheless, Emmerich tells USA Today, that this was the biggest problem with his earlier movies.

  No more. Whereas he shot Independence Day for a relatively frugal $72 million, he's had an estimated $200 million to play with in making 2012 — and from the looks of the trailer, he's clearly going for broke here. Every prominent monument or landmark that could be destroyed, is destroyed. Those he's pulverized before, like the White House, get it even more dramatically. Even if it doesn't turn out to be the best of apocalypses, it will certainly rank as one of the most thorough.

  With so little left to destroy in future movies, it's not too much of a surprise that Emmerich is finally ready to put the end of the world behind him. 2012 is, he says, the last disaster movie for "the master of disaster." At least he will be going out with a bang (and a splash, and a fireball...).

  Emmerich's next project will definitely strike a much quieter note. It's a mystery about whether Shakespeare wrote his own plays, titled Anonymous.

  
  

  Posted 07/23/2009 by Bill

  Related: Roland Emmerich | 2012

Thursday, June 18

• Apocalypse Galore in New Trailer for 2012

  Just how many over-the-top images of catastrophic disaster can you fit in one trailer? Almost too many to count, it seems. Buildings collapse, the land slides into the sea, water washes over the mountains, fire rains down from the heavens, and general panic ensues. All sorts of eye candy.

  Pretty much what you would expect from Independence Day director Roland Emmerich as he goes for broke in the end-of-the-world apocalyptic thriller 2012. All hope may not be lost, though — the titles insist "The end is just the beginning."

  
  

  Posted 06/18/2009 by Bill

  Related: Roland Emmerich | 2012

Sunday, June 7

• Roland Emmerich's 2012 Envisions an Earthquake of Unprecedented Magnitude

  The earthquake to end all earthquakes. That's part of what Roland Emmerich's multi-apocalypse thriller 2012 is promising to deliver to audiences, according to a MarketSaw report on a recent producer's conference.

  A nearly finished clip from 2012 shown at the conference followed a family attempting to survive the effects of a magnitude 10.5 earthquake. Here's how it's described:

  ... they escape their collapsing house and drive into a city whilst dodging falling skyscrapers, tumbling highways, and giant pillars of earth that rise from the ground. The surface ripples and cracks as huge waves of seismic force wreak havoc on everything. The visual effects in this sequence are astounding, and the scale of what is happening is massive. The team studied in detail how various structures, trees, etc would react to such a 10.5 quake, and the results are apparent in how scary and real the footage seems.

  Just how big would a magnitude 10.5 earthquake really be? The scale is only supposed to go to 10, and the largest earthquake ever recorded—so far—was 9.5. So it looks to be an event on par with a tsunami washing over the Himalayas, an event featured in the movie's trailer.

  
  

  Posted 06/07/2009 by Bill

  Related: Roland Emmerich | 2012

Wednesday, February 4

• 2012 Unveils Charlie Frost "Apocalypse Prognosticator"

  No apocalypse is complete without some crazy guy ranting about how we're all gonna die. In the case of Roland Emmerich's 2012, this role appears to be filled, at least initially, by a really scraggly-looking Woody Harrelson, aka Charlie Frost "Apocalypse Prognosticator." You can catch some of his highly-entertaining doom-filled video-blogging over at the End of Days site, which is part of a viral marketing campaign for the upcoming movie. In addition to dire warnings about how hopeless it all is, he introduces a cartoon synopsis of the over-the-top 2012 plot, tying together Mayan prophesy, rare planetary alignments, random crackpot scientists and Albert Einstein in illuminating this planet's expiration date.

  
  
  Next Showing: 2012 arrives in theaters November 12, 2009
  

  Reelz Clip

  John Cusack & Woody Harrelson Star - Releasing Nov. 13, 2009

  Posted 02/04/2009 by reelz

  Related: Woody Harrelson | Roland Emmerich | 2012

Tuesday, January 20

• 2012 Goes from Summer to Thanksgiving

  The Sci-Fi action pic 2012 from director Roland Emmerich (Godzilla, 10,000 B.C.) has been pushed from July 13th to November 13th by Sony. Sony says the move will enable them to take advantage of the same release slot held by its last two James Bond films. The change also clears up a very competitive July weekend that includes Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's The Tooth Fairy.

  Sony was sure to clarify that the change was purely a business decision and not the result of any problems associated with the 2012 production. Sony did admit that the change would give them some time to put some extra work into the effect-heavy production.

  Source: The Hollywood Reporter

  
  
  

  Reelz Clip

  John Cusack & Woody Harrelson Star - Releasing July 10, 2009

  Posted 01/20/2009 by reelz

  Related: Roland Emmerich | 2012

Friday, August 8

• Director's House More Interesting than His Movies?

  Roland Emmerich, director of the 9% Rotten Tomatoes Rating 10,000 BC, has a funny house in London. Some highlights: a tiny diorama of the Kennedy assassination, Arnold as The Thinker, and Lady Di flipping a royal bird. "People can spend an entire evening discussing a film. I liked the idea that a house might inspire the same," Emmerich's designer, John Teall, tells the NY Times. Perhaps he can decorate the director's next movie with a more interesting plot!

  
  

  Posted 08/08/2008 by reelz

  Related: Roland Emmerich

Friday, March 7

• Early Fan Reviews: 10,000 B.C.

  Watch early fan reaction to Roland Emmerich's epic caveman fantasy 10,000 B.C.. The New York Post's Lou Lumenick calls it "a mammoth bomb." Get it? See if movie fans agree.

  Next week we'll be at the first showing of Doomsday, a futuristic action thriller which looks like a mutated strain of equal parts I Am Legend, Escape from New York, and The Road Warrior.

  
  

  Posted 03/07/2008 by Dack

  Related: Roland Emmerich | 10,000 B.C.

Thursday, August 16

• Sci-fi fans rejoice! Fantastic Voyage and Neverwhere remake news

  It's a good day in Hollywood for Sci-fi fans, that's for sure.

  First, Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) has signed on to direct a remake of Fantastic Voyage, the 1966 sci-fi flick that starred Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence says Variety.

  The script, which will be written by Marianne and Cormac Wibberley (Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, National Treasure), is about a scientist who must be saved from a fatal blood clot by miniaturizing five colleagues in a ship that is then injected into his bloodstream. Sounds like Innerspace to Gen X-ers like us!

  And second, sci-fi author extraordinaire Neil Gaiman has revealed to MTV that a big screen adaptation of Neverwhere is once again in the works. The popular book, which Gaiman originally wrote as a BBC miniseries, has been floundering, as MTV puts it in "development Hell" for years. But it appears to be back on the right track, with David Slade (Hard Candy) attached to direct.

  
  

  Posted 08/16/2007 by reelz

  Related: Cormac Wibberley | Roland Emmerich | Marianne Wibberley | Neil Gaiman | David Slade | The Wibberleys | Fantastic Voyage | Neverwhere