2012 (film)
2012 is a 2009 American epic apocalyptic disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich, written by Emmerich and Harald Kloser, and starring John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandiwe Newton, Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson. Based on the 2012 phenomenon, its plot follows numerous characters, including novelist Jackson Curtis and geologist Adrian Helmsley, as they struggle to survive an eschatological sequence of events including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, megatsunamis, and a global flood.
Filming, initially planned to take place in Los Angeles, began in Vancouver in August 2008 and wrapped two months later. An extensive marketing campaign was launched for the film, which included the creation of a website from its main characters' point of view and a viral marketing website on which filmgoers could register for a lottery number to save them from the ensuing disaster.
Released in the United States by Sony Pictures Releasing on November 13, 2009, 2012 received mixed reviews, but was a commercial success, grossing $791.2 million worldwide against a production budget of $200 million, becoming the fifth highest-grossing film of 2009. The film was nominated for Best Action, Adventure, or Thriller Film and Best Special Effects at the 36th Saturn Awards, and for Best Visual Effects at the 15th Critics' Choice Awards.
Plot
In 2009, American geologist Adrian Helmsley visits astrophysicist Satnam Tsurutani in Jharkhand, India, and learns that a previously undiscovered type of neutrino from a solar flare is heating the Earth's core. Returning to Washington, D.C., Adrian alerts White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser and President Thomas Wilson. A year later, over forty-six nations begin building nine arks in the Himalayas in Tibet, and storing artifacts in secure locations. Nima, a Buddhist monk, is evacuated with his grandparents, while his brother Tenzin joins the ark project. Additional funding is secretly raised by selling tickets to the rich for €1 billion per person.In 2012, struggling science-fiction writer Jackson Curtis is a chauffeur in Los Angeles for Russian billionaire Yuri Karpov. Jackson's former wife, Kate and their children, Noah and Lilly, live with Kate's boyfriend, plastic surgeon and amateur pilot Gordon Silberman. Jackson takes Noah and Lilly camping at Yellowstone National Park. When they find Yellowstone Lake dried up and fenced off by the United States Army, they are caught and brought to Adrian. They later meet conspiracy theorist and radio personality Charlie Frost, who tells Jackson of Charles Hapgood's earth crust displacement theory and how the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar predicts the end of the world in 2012, and that the world's governments silence anyone attempting to warn the public.
Despite his initial skepticism, Jackson begins to take Charlie's warning seriously after witnessing several signs that seem to confirm it. These include a conversation with Yuri's sons, Alec and Oleg, who warn of impending disaster after Jackson drops them off at Santa Monica Airport. He rents a Cessna 340A and sets out to rescue his family. As the Pacific Coast suffers a catastrophic 10.9-magnitude quake along the San Andreas Fault, Jackson and his family reach the airport and get the Cessna airborne before the coast sinks into the Pacific Ocean. The group flies to Yellowstone, and Jackson retrieves Charlie's map of the arks' location, just as the Yellowstone Caldera begins to erupt. Charlie stays behind to finish his broadcast and is killed by debris. Realizing they need a larger plane to fly to the Himalayas, the group lands at McCarran International Airport south of Downtown Las Vegas to locate one.
Adrian, Carl, and First Daughter Laura fly to the arks while President Wilson remains in the White House to address the nation. Jackson finds the Karpovs, Yuri's girlfriend Tamara, and their pilot, Sasha. Sasha and Gordon fly the families out in an Antonov An-500, as the volcanic ash from Yellowstone envelops the Las Vegas Valley. The planet's crust shifts, resulting in billions of deaths in disasters worldwide, including President Wilson. With the presidential line of succession broken, Carl appoints himself acting commander-in-chief.
Upon reaching the Himalayas, the Antonov's engines malfunction. As the plane touches down on a glacier, the party uses a Bentley Flying Spur stored in the hold to escape, while Sasha stays in the cockpit and is killed when the jet goes over a cliff. The survivors are spotted by Chinese Armed Police helicopters which take only the three ticket-bearing Karpovs, and Yuri revealing his knowledge of Tamara and Sasha's affair, leaving her and Jackson's family behind. The group encounters Nima, who, with his own family, takes them to the arks, where they stow away on Ark 4 with Tenzin's help.
With a megatsunami approaching, Carl orders the loading gates closed, though many people have not yet boarded. Adrian persuades the captain and the other surviving world leaders to allow more passengers aboard the arks, while Yuri falls to his death as he pushes his sons onto Ark 4. As the gate closes, Tenzin is injured and Gordon is fatally crushed. Tenzin's impact driver lodges in the gate mechanism, preventing it from closing completely and disabling the ship's engines. As the tsunami strikes, the ark starts flooding as it is set adrift, heading for Mount Everest. Adrian rushes to clear the gears, but watertight doors close, trapping the stowaways and drowning Tamara. Noah and Jackson dislodge the tool, and the crew regains control of the ark.
Twenty-seven days later, the waters start receding. The arks approach the Cape of Good Hope, where the Drakensberg Mountains are now the highest mountain range on Earth. Adrian and Laura begin a relationship, while Jackson and Kate reconcile.
Cast
Production
Development
's Fingerprints of the Gods was listed in 2012 credits as the film's inspiration, and Emmerich said in a Time Out interview: "I always wanted to do a biblical flood movie, but I never felt I had the hook. I first read about the Earth's crust displacement theory in Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods." He and composer-producer Harald Kloser worked closely together, co-writing a spec script which was marketed to studios in February 2008. A number of studios heard budget projection and story plans from Emmerich and his representatives, a process the director had previously undertaken for Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow.Later that month, Sony Pictures Entertainment obtained the rights to the spec script. Planned for distribution by Columbia Pictures, 2012 cost less than its budget; according to Emmerich, the film was produced for about $200 million.
Filming
Filming, originally scheduled to begin in Los Angeles in July 2008, commenced in Kamloops, Savona, Cache Creek, and Ashcroft, British Columbia, in early August 2008 and wrapped in mid-October. With the possibility of a Screen Actors Guild strike looming in the wake of the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, the film's producers drew up a contingency plan in case of a walkout by actors. Uncharted Territory, Digital Domain, Double Negative, Scanline, and Sony Pictures Imageworks were hired to create the film's visual effects.The film depicts the destruction of several cultural and historical landmarks around the world. Emmerich said that the Kaaba was considered for selection, but Kloser was concerned about a possible fatwa against him.
Soundtrack
The film's score was composed by Harald Kloser and Thomas Wander. Adam Lambert contributed a song to the film, "Time for Miracles", which was written by Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider. The 24-song soundtrack includes "Fades Like a Photograph" by Filter and "It Ain't the End of the World" by George Segal and Blu Mankuma. "Master of Shadows" by Two Steps from Hell was used for the film's trailers.Release
Marketing
2012 was marketed through the fictional Institute for Human Continuity, at a viral marketing website that was created by the movie studio. The website featured main-character Jackson Curtis's book Farewell Atlantis, streaming media, blog updates, and radio broadcasts from zealot Charlie Frost on his website, This Is the End. On November 12, 2008, the studio released the first trailer for 2012, which ended with a suggestion to viewers to "find out the truth" by entering "2012" on a search engine. The Guardian called the film's marketing "deeply flawed", associating it with "websites that make even more spurious claims about 2012".At the website, filmgoers could register for a lottery number to be part of a small population that would be rescued from the global destruction. David Morrison of NASA, who had received over 1,000 inquiries from people who thought the website was genuine, condemned it. "I've even had cases of teenagers writing to me saying they are contemplating suicide because they don't want to see the world end", Morrison said. "I think when you lie on the internet and scare children to make a buck, that is ethically wrong." Another marketing website promoted Farewell Atlantis.
Comcast organized a "roadblock campaign" to promote the film in which a two-minute scene was broadcast on 450 American commercial television networks, local English-language and Spanish-language stations, and 89 cable outlets during a ten-minute window between 10:50 and 11:00 pm Eastern and Pacific Time on October 1, 2009. The scene featured the destruction of Los Angeles and ended with a cliffhanger, with the entire 5:38 clip available on Comcast's Fancast website. According to Variety, "The stunt will put the footage in front of 90% of all households watching ad-supported TV, or nearly 110 million viewers. When combined with online and mobile streams, that could increase to more than 140 million".