ROTTEN TOMATOES: For Roland Emmerich, 2012 Is Now

For Roland Emmerich, 2012 Is Now

We hear there may be explosions, high-speed chases, and lots of shouting.

by Jeff Giles | February 21, 2008

Roland Emmerich's 10,000 B.C. won't arrive in theaters until March 7, but the big-budget-lovin' director already has studios lining up to pay for his next project.

Variety reports that Emmerich's people at CAA are shopping 2012, described as "an apocalyptic spec script" written by the director with his 10,000 B.C. partner, Harald Kloser. From the article:

Studio toppers read the script Tuesday, and indications are that nearly all of them were interested enough to meet with Emmerich and reps Wednesday to hear his budget projection and creative aspirations. After that, studios will bid on what is essentially a greenlit film, one that Emmerich intends to direct next and have ready for a summer 2009 release, barring a prolonged Screen Actors Guild strike.

As Variety points out, this process is nothing new for Emmerich; he's held spec auctions for several of his films, including Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. And what with the hiccup in script development caused by the strike, Emmerich should find more studios than ever hungry for a ready-made tentpole. 2012, here we come!

Source: Variety

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(1-20 of 29 posts) | Reply

Elixor writes:
on Feb 21 2008 05:50 AM

This guy makes big-budget garbage. It makes money, but these movies are nothing more than cool concepts that are executed poorly. You can have fun cool movies with good stories and plots that people who like to think can buy, but supporting this dribble just tells the studios that they don't need to make that kind of effort. Yes, people enjoy brainless fun escapes, but as it has been shown with movies like Indiana Jones movies, or the Matrix movies, or even movies like the Predator films. You can have fun movies that have some thought put into them and may only have some plot holes instead of selling out and not worrying about the movie making little to no sense at all.

I'm done spending money that supports making these types of movies. They're just lowering the bar every time they come out and rack up box office numbers.

(Reply to this)

whiskeyriver writes:
on Feb 21 2008 05:55 AM

In reply to this comment (#1591078)
Ahh...don't mention Indiana Jones in the same breath as The Matrix or Predator! Heh heh.

(Reply to this)

frogleg writes:
on Feb 21 2008 07:37 AM

*sigh*
This guy sucks. The Day After Tomorrow was a horrible, horrible movie.

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thereign writes:
on Feb 21 2008 08:38 AM

Elixor, I couldn't have said it any better! You hit every nail on the head, regarding Emmerich's vast super-powers of suckitude!

One bright spot: if you've never been to the website "the-editing-room.com", check it out. Rod Hilton, the guy who writes all the fake "abridged" scripts for movies, has blasted a couple of good ones in Emmerich's direction. Check out his take on The Day After Tomorrow...I guarantee you'll laugh 'til it hurts!

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Basilides in Alexandria writes:
on Feb 21 2008 08:52 AM

All that money and all that power, yet he only makes garbage. It's just sad...
I'll never watch a movie directed by this guy.

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Shatter24 writes:
on Feb 21 2008 09:03 AM

I think Emmerich makes entertaining and very watchable films, generally they are good action-event films. Let's not be so critical. He has a good handle on technology. Let's not forget his prior resume of films:

Universal Soldier (making a decent film w/ Van Damme & Lundgren is a test in itself), B-

Stargate (w/o the movie there would be no TV shows for you guys), B plus

Independence Day (huge, fun, flashy movie that made Will Smith a star), A-

Godzilla (ok, I give you that one, but it is awful in an entertaining way)C-

The Patriot (very good movie, w/ heartfelt performances from Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger; not his standard type of film), A

The Day After Tomorrow (another very good and entertaining film, that helped make Jake Gyllenhaal a household name, resurrect Dennis Quaid career), A

10,000 BC (we'll see . . . )

(Reply to this)

Dinobot77 writes:
on Feb 21 2008 09:49 AM

In reply to this comment (#1591594)
I would have to agree with Shatter. Although Emmerich makes a tramendous amount of CG based movies, he really hasn't done that mad at directing. Yes, it could be argued that his action movies (Zilla, ID, US, and DAT) were not as great as made out to be. Yet, I have to say that Stargate and The Patriot are top notch. I think we should hold our reserve on 2012 until we see 10,000 since it looks extremely different from everything else.

(Reply to this)

andygates23 writes:
on Feb 21 2008 10:31 AM

Stargate and Independence Day are both phenomenal action films. I'll always check out an Emmerich flick because of those two movies.

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Cowboyninja writes:
on Feb 21 2008 11:05 AM

There better be some EXPLOSIVE TZOLKIN action in there.

(Reply to this)

Elixor writes:
on Feb 21 2008 11:45 AM

In reply to this comment (#1591573)
Lol, yeah that was definately worth some laughs. I almost forgot about the whole mexican immigration aspect of the film. My god that was such a bad movie!

Here's my take on Emmerich's movie history, since it was brought up.

Universal Soldier - I'll give him this one as being an enjoyable movie. It was completely Sci-Fi future and purposely shallow, so he couldn't completely lose anybody. Was a decent action flick. (B)

Stargate - Was OK. Not a top movie by any means for me. The TV series SG-1 is actually more interesting and that's saying something. (C/C )

Independence Day - Complete trash. There was like a full year of advertising hype for this movie (if not more) and what did we get? Will Smith was good and watching the spaceships blow up things was cool, but the trailer is more interesting than the movie itself (the concept is the only thing good). We have alien ship vs. fighter jet dog fights, bad comedy, bad drama, aliens defeated by a computer virus (one of the dumbest resolutions ever). Made tons of money from people who like me, liked the concept, but unlike me, had no problem checking their brain at the door. It was expensive fireworks, not a good movie. (D-)

Godzilla - A definition movie of over-funded, over-advertised, much anticipated disappointing crap. (F)

The Patriot - A blatent Highlander wanna be movie, but Highlander is far superior. There's very little that I can get from this movie that I couldn't get from watching Braveheart. Just watch both of them back-to-back and you'll see what I'm talking about. (D )

The Day After Tomorrow - Another over-advertised, over-anticipated piece of junk. Another cool concept that's completely wasted. If I watched this movie again and took notes, I could probably fill pages of bullet points about why most of this movie doesn't make any rational sense. There's cheap suspence mechanisms in this movie that are just stupid. Running from cold? The stupid wolf chase scenes? It's deadly cold, but you see scenes where Quaid isn't wearing a mask and his coat partially unzipped? The retarded politics? It's hard to have fun watching a movie that is trying to be dramatic, but doesn't make sense and isn't doing so to be funny. A really bad movie. (F)

(Reply to this)

smartmoviekid writes:
on Feb 21 2008 11:46 AM

i also like emmerich , even though he had some missteps with godzilla, he generally makes really good popcorn flicks. This one, although it looks like a glorified Apoclypto (sorry 4 spelling) with animals, it looks to entertain and kill a few hours in a good way.

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dethburger writes:
on Feb 21 2008 12:08 PM

ID4 is, without a doubt, one of the stupidest movies made. I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to sci-fi but good god this is bad.

Here is just ONE point:
Spaceship is 15 miles across, sitting directly over area 51 getting ready to blast our heros when It gets blown up...yet crashes 20 miles away in the mountains.

Emmerich is a hack.

(Reply to this)

lilheclou writes:
on Feb 21 2008 12:41 PM

no problem with this director made some good action movies 10,000 bc looks like a decent action flick so let him make this movie ps i don't mind michael bay like directors just make decent action movies

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quietus28 writes:
on Feb 21 2008 01:43 PM

Everything Emmerich has done is terrible, from Stargate to Day After Tomorrow. What's worse is he always starts out with an interesting idea, then finds virtually every way to cheesify it. Hell, even Michael Bay would call this guy a hack.

(Reply to this)

Bk_Tan writes:
on Feb 21 2008 02:08 PM

lol i love haters

the internet is full of haters, only haters make comments after all.
personally i think Emmerich is great and his track record proves it.

don't think every director has to be the next Academy Award Winner.
movies are for entertainment, you're entitled to your view, but still, not every movie is supposed to be the Oscar winner.
hell, if you look at the nominees look at their gross. they don't appeal widely at all.

so stop being trolls. Emmerich will pull this off and once this does gross gangbusters you'll be proven wrong once again.

(Reply to this)

~*Admiral Snowstorm*~ writes:
on Feb 21 2008 03:00 PM

I think, Bk_Tan, that we're all angry at the fact that Emmerich gets so much money to make such horrible movies. There are so many directors out there that could make some really great movies if they only had the money Emmerich gets, and yet, Emmerich gets all the money and does nothing worth mentioning with it. He's not the worst director in the world, but he's definitely down there, and the fact that I can say with reasonable certainty that he'll never make a good movie is kind of sad. You can just see in his directing style that he's a pretty acerebral fellow.

If 10,000 BC turns out to be good, disregard this post. But seriously, what are the odds? It looks to be a carbon copy The Day After Tomorrow but in a different age.

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sju54 writes:
on Feb 21 2008 03:14 PM

Don't you guys see there is something more evil here than Roland Emmerich? It's the fact that he is going to initiate the thorough overkill of the 12/21 2012 apocalypse myth/theory. There are so many terrible books about it right now, and the movies will be worse. The thing will be done from Zombies to Aliens...I can't wait.

(Reply to this)

FireflyFan4evr writes:
on Feb 21 2008 03:15 PM

Independence Day was fairly good from what I remember. Sure, it was kinda on the dumb side, but you know it was doing what it wanted to do- and fairly well at that. Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith? Pretty damn entertaining if you ask me. As for his other movies, they are fairly bad and "10,000 BC" looks like a poor-man's version of "Apocalypto" that's set 9500 years earlier.

(Reply to this)

Damon687 writes:
on Feb 21 2008 03:46 PM

Seriously, so many haters. I am not even sure why people that hate Roland that much even read an article about him. If I hated a director that much, I would skip over the article and the movie when it came out. Find an article you like and write something positive, you'll feel better about yourself and you won't bring other people down.

His movies:
Stargate - cool flick, not sure what else could have been expected
I enjoyed both James Spader and Kurt Russell

Independence Day - Did exactly what it was supposed to, big budget fun, cool action and a fun movie. Of course there were flaws but looking for inaccuracies in a movie like ID4 means you have WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS (talk about a given, no one thought the movie would be perfect). Besides, Will Smith was great as pretty much always, I also enjoyed Jeff Goldblum. It made huge money world wide, had super long legs at the box office which means overall the fans really enjoyed it. I am sure he feels like a real loser for making such a huge success.

Day After Tomorrow - Hold on, you guys took this movie seriously? Well, there's your problem. I went for fun and that's what I got. Some very cool effects and I was entertained, that's what counts for a movie like that.

Godzilla - definitely got weaker as it went on but still entertaining. Matthew Broderick was cool and Jean Reno was fun as always. Certainly not an A grade movie but did anyone expect that from an American version of Godzilla?

Patriot - Really good flick, Heath and Mel were good and so was the movie.

10,000 BC - Looks really good, looking forward to it.

Big Budget entertainment delivered, that's what Roland does. His movies have been very successful for that reason, the people are happy. Try to have a bit more fun at the movies, not every movie is meant for the academy, some are just meant to entertain. If you don't like that kind of movie, don't go see it, it's that simple.

(Reply to this)

arendr writes:
on Feb 21 2008 03:49 PM

Emmerich is like a less-obnoxious Michael Bay. So...take that to mean whatever you want.

Stargate is an okay movie, but not that good. Spader carried it, IMO. 10,000 BC looks absolutely pathetic though. I really hope people don't get fooled by that like they have with Jumper and give it a good B.O.

(Reply to this)

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