2012

2012
Promotional film poster
Directed by	Roland Emmerich
Produced by	Roland Emmerich Mark Gordon Harald Kloser Larry J. Franco Ute Emmerich
Written by	Harald Kloser Roland Emmerich
Starring	John Cusack Amanda Peet Danny Glover Thandie Newton Oliver Platt Chiwetel Ejiofor Woody Harrelson George Segal
Music by	Harald Kloser
Cinematography	Dean Semler
Editing by	David Brenner Peter S. Elliott
Studio	Centropolis Entertainment The Mark Gordon Company
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	November 13, 2009
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$200 million

2012 is an upcoming American science fiction disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich. The film has an ensemble cast, including John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Woody Harrelson. The film will be distributed by Columbia Pictures. Filming began in August 2008 in Vancouver; the film is expected to be released worldwide on November 13, 2009.

Plot

A global cataclysm occurs which leads to the end of the world and has survivors struggling for their lives. The film is inspired by several hypotheses that state that the ancient Mayans predicted a doomsday event will occur sometime around the 2012 winter solstice.

Production

Director Roland Emmerich and composer-producer Harald Kloser co-wrote a spec script titled 2012, which was marketed to major studios in February 2008. Nearly all studios met with Emmerich and his representatives to hear the director's budget projection and story plans, a process that the director had previously gone through with the films Independence Day (1996) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004). The film was shopped around with a production budget of $200 million. Later that month, Sony Pictures Entertainment won the rights for the spec script, planning to distribute it under Columbia Pictures The studio planned to make the film for less than the estimated budget.

Filming was originally scheduled to begin in Los Angeles, California, in July 2008, but instead commenced in Vancouver in August 2008. Due to the possible 2008 Screen Actors Guild strike, filmmakers set up a contingency plan for salvaging the film. Sony Pictures Imageworks was hired to create visual effects for 2012. Thomas Wander co-wrote the score with Harald Kloser.

Cast

• John Cusack as Jackson Curtis, a science fiction book writer who occasionally works as a limousine driver.
• Amanda Peet as Kate, Jackson's ex-wife.
• Danny Glover as President Wilson, the President of the United States.
• Thandie Newton as Laura Wilson, the First Daughter.
• Oliver Platt as Carl Anheuser, the President's Chief of Staff
• Chiwetel Ejiofor as Adrian Helmsley, scientific advisor to the President.
• Woody Harrelson as Charlie Frost a man who prophesies the end of the world and is considered crazy by others. Alex Jones claimed in an interview with Eric "Mancow" Muller that Harrelson told him that Frost's character was based on him. compared his character to the mythological Greek figure Cassandra, whose predictions were dismissed.
• Ng Chin Han as Lin Pang, a worker in Tibet.
• Thomas McCarthy as Gordon, Kate's current boyfriend and a plastic surgeon.
• Liam James as Noah Curtis, Jackson and Kate's son.
• Morgan Lily as Lilly Curtis, Jackson and Kate's daughter.

Marketing

On November 12, 2008, the studio released the first teaser trailer for 2012 that showed a tsunami surging over the Himalayas and interlaced a purportedly scientific message suggesting that the world would end in 2012, and that the world's governments were not preparing its population for the event. The trailer ended with a message to viewers to "find out the truth" by searching "2012" on search engines. The Guardian criticized the marketing approach as "deeply flawed" and associated it with "websites that make even more spurious claims about 2012".

The studio also launched a viral marketing website operated by the fictional Institute for Human Continuity, where filmgoers could register for a lottery number to be part of a small population that would be rescued from the global destruction. A second trailer was released, it was telling that we were warned by the Mayans. It showed disasters like an earthquake destroying the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, Las Vegas being split in half by a canyon, and California drifting into the Pacific. There are also references to the government building ships for survivors, Air Force One being overtaken by water and destroyed, and the USS John F. Kennedy being thrown into the White House as a megatsunami floods Washington D.C.

Release

2012 was originally scheduled to be released on July 10, 2009.