If Roland Emmerich is truly on the verge of making a huge spec sale with his latest apocalyptic hogwash, currently titled 2012 (guess he’s in his “year phase”), then maybe 10,000 B.C. has more going for it commercially than we’ve seen from the trailers and TV spots. Or maybe the studios just like working with him because they know exactly what they’re gonna get: lots and lots and lots of stoopid.
According to Variety‘s Michael Fleming, Emmerich and co-writer Harald Kloser sent their screenplay around to all of the major studios yesterday (question: does that still include New Line?). Not surprisingly, most of them were sufficiently intrigued to request a Wednesday meeting with the German “Master of Derivative Disaster” where he’ll lay out his “budget projection and creative aspirations” (I’m trying to figure out where the former ends and the latter begins). Come tomorrow, they’ll enter outrageous bids for a project that could’ve been commissioned for a bulk shipment of Nerds from any random second grade classroom.
Fleming’s sources claim that 2012 actually has “more going for it than the big idea that studios love”. The mind reels at those possibilities. “In Day After Tomorrow, my characters outrun cold air; in 2012, they fight it!” “This time, our species’ undoing is rancid cheese.” “In the future, everyone speaks Nell.”
2012 is intended as a 2009 tentpole, so expect a dispiriting sale as soon as tomorrow evening!
12 comments
Terrific question regarding New Line
Perhaps God/the Universe/BARBELiTH/whatever has chosen Emmerich as the next Buddha, you know? It's always the least likely candidate. And this film will correctly indoctrinate the planet so we're ready to shuck off our corporeal forms and join our consciousness with the cosmos, when the actual 2012 rolls around. Or it could be about an ancient prophecy and a handsome scientist reuniting with his estranged ex-wife during a global crisis.
"In Day After Tomorrow, my characters outrun cold air; in 2012, they fight it!" "This time, our species' undoing is rancid cheese." "In the future, everyone speaks Nell."
Man, that slaughtered me.
Emmerich writes screenplays? Let me guess:
"EXT. Boom! Boooooom! HUGE BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
Everything EXPLODES as the FIREBALL grows TWICE THE SIZE EACH SECOND! SWOOOSH! The fireball is coming STRAIGHT AT US! SWOOSH! BOOOOOM!"
man, its a sad fucking day when michael mann can greenlit a noir with leo attached and this hack director can film his next big piece of shit "epic". When i see the sabretooth and all the obvious refrences to "300" in "10,000 BC" it makes me wanna eat my own dick
INT. OVAL OFFICE, NIGHT. Ka-blammo!! PRESIDENT (in gravely grave voice): My God! Ka-Koooom! PRESIDENT: God help us! Blippity-bang-bong!!..PRESIDENT: Sweet Lord!…….oh wait that already happened in X3.
No Sasha, that's from the script for Transformers 2 that Michael Bay wrote during the writers' strike.
What's the scariest movie possible? One about Christians being right. I see huge profit potential for a Rapture disaster movie, it'll be terrifying to the average viewer who have to wait 4 whole years to find out if Roland Emmerich, and, to a lesser extent, Christians, were right. And it will also draw in the Mel Gibson crowd. It's a surefire hit with the high prospect of sequels.
It's only after writing this I look back in horror to see that it's true.
2009: The Year CHUD Make Stupid(by hiring Owen the Dummy)
Let's see, the Whitley Strieber/Art Bell book The Coming Global Superstorm served as the basis for The Day After Tomorrow. Whitley Strieber just published a book title 2012: The War for Souls and now Roland Emmerich has a film project title 2012. I doubt that it is a coincedence.
Chadzilla's got to be onto something. I'm reading Strieber's insanely fucked "2012" right now. Insanely fucked and not in a good way. I love following the Coast To Coast AM radio regulars (Art Bell, George Noory, Whitley Strieber, et al) and the mythology that has been built by the hosts and listeners. It's great entertainment. It's also responsible for some of the worst travesties of the written word you'll ever read. It blows my mind that someone could read Strieber's book and see a screenplay. I would love for the dialog to be lifted straight from the book: it's so retarded it borders on brilliant. This could be one of the most insane things ever to be put to celluloid. It would be legendary!
Thanks for the insite,"Ratfactor". Whew, boy. ("Chariots of the gods, mam.")
Comments are shown as archived from the original site; new comments are closed.