2012 | |
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Directed by | Roland Emmerich |
Written by |
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Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Dean Semler |
Edited by |
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Music by |
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Production companies | |
Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Release date |
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Running time | 158 minutes |
Country | United States [1] |
Language | English |
Budget | $200 million [2] |
Box office | $791.2 million [3] |
2012 is a 2009 American epic science fiction disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich, written by Emmerich and Harald Kloser, and stars John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Thandiwe Newton, [a] Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson. Based on the 2012 phenomenon, its plot follows geologist Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) and novelist Jackson Curtis (Cusack) as they struggle to survive an eschatological sequence of events including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, megatsunamis, and a global flood.
Filming, planned for Los Angeles, began in Vancouver in early August 2008 and wrapped up in mid-October 2008. [4] [5] The film ran a lengthy advertising campaign, which included the creation of a website from its main characters' point of view [6] and a viral marketing website on which filmgoers could register for a lottery number to save them from the ensuing disaster. [7]
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.
In 2009, American geologist Adrian Helmsley visits astrophysicist Satnam Tsurutani in East India and learns that a new 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.
In 2010, 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, and 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 in 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 worldwide catastrophe, and that the world's governments silence anyone attempting to warn the public.
Despite his initial skepticism, Jackson heeds Charlie's warning after seeing indications that validate it. At the Santa Monica Airport, after dropping off Yuri's sons Alec and Oleg, who also warn of impending doom as they board a plane, he rents a Cessna 340A and sets out to rescue his family. As the Pacific Coast suffers a horrific 10.9 earthquake along the San Andreas Fault, Jackson and his family reach the airport and get the Cessna airborne. The group flies to Yellowstone and Jackson retrieves Charlie's map of the arks' location. The Yellowstone Caldera erupts, with Charlie staying behind to finish his broadcast; he is killed by debris. Realizing they need a larger plane to fly to Asia, the group lands at McCarran International Airport south of Downtown Las Vegas to search for 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 ashes from the Caldera envelop the Las Vegas Valley. The planet's crust shifts, resulting in billions dead in disasters worldwide, including President Wilson. With the presidential line of succession gone, following the death of the Vice President and the disappearance of the Speaker of the House, 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, except Sasha, who stays in the cockpit and is killed when the jet goes over a cliff. The survivors are spotted by Chinese Air Force helicopters, which take only the three ticket-bearing Karpovs, leaving Tamara and Jackson's family behind. The abandoned group later 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 most people have not boarded. Adrian persuades the captain and the other surviving world leaders to allow passengers aboard the arks, but Yuri falls to his death as he pushes his sons onto Ark 4. The gate closes after survivors are on board, injuring Tenzin and fatally crushing Gordon. Tenzin's impact driver used to access the ship gets lodged 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. The crew regains control of the ark, while Jackson and Noah make it back safely.
Twenty-seven days later, the waters are receding. The arks approach the Cape of Good Hope, where the Drakensberg Mountains are the highest mountain range on Earth. Adrian and Laura begin a relationship, while Jackson and Kate reconcile.
An alternate ending appears in the film's DVD release. After Ark 4's Captain Michaels announces that they are heading for the Cape of Good Hope, Adrian learns by phone that his father, Harry, and Harry's friend Tony Delgatto, survived a megatsunami that capsized their cruise ship Genesis. Adrian and Laura strike up a friendship with the Curtis family, Kate thanks Laura for taking care of Lilly, Laura tells Jackson that she enjoyed his book Farewell Atlantis, and Jackson and Adrian have a conversation reflecting on the events of the worldwide crisis. Carl apologizes to Adrian and Laura for his negligent actions. Jackson returns Noah's cell phone, which he recovered during the Ark 4 flood. Finally, the ark finds the shipwrecked Genesis and its survivors on a beach. [8]
Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods was listed in 2012's credits as the film's inspiration, [13] 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." [14] He and composer-producer Harald Kloser worked closely together, co-writing a spec script (also titled 2012) 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 (1996) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004). [15]
Later that month, Sony Pictures Entertainment obtained the rights to the spec script. Planned for distribution by Columbia Pictures, [16] 2012 cost less than its budget; according to Emmerich, the film was produced for about $200 million. [2]
Filming, originally scheduled to begin in Los Angeles in July 2008, [5] began in Kamloops, Savona, Cache Creek, and Ashcroft, British Columbia, in early August 2008 and wrapped up in mid-October 2008. [4] [17] With a Screen Actors Guild strike looming, the film's producers had a contingency plan in case of a walkout by actors. [18] 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. [19]
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 originally written by Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider. [20] 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. [21] "Master of Shadows" by Two Steps from Hell was used for the film's trailers.
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' book Farewell Atlantis, streaming media, blog updates, and radio broadcasts from zealot Charlie Frost on his website, This Is the End. [6] 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". [22]
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. [7] 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." [23] Another marketing website promoted Farewell Atlantis. [6]
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. [24] 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". [24]
2012 was released to cinemas on November 13, 2009, in Indonesia, Mexico, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, China, India, Italy, the Philippines, Turkey, the United States, and Japan. [25] According to Sony Pictures, the film could have been completed for a summer release, but a delay allowed more time for production.[ citation needed ]
The DVD and Blu-ray versions were released on March 2, 2010. The two-disc Blu-ray edition includes over 90 minutes of features, including Adam Lambert's music video for "Time for Miracles" and a digital copy for PSP, PC, Mac, and iPod. [26] A 3D version was released in Cinemex theaters in Mexico in February 2010. [27] It was later released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on January 19, 2021.[ citation needed ]
2012 grossed $166.1 million in North America and $603.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $769.6 million against a production budget of $200 million, [3] making it the first film to gross over $700 million worldwide without making $200 million domestically. [28] Worldwide, it was the fifth-highest-grossing 2009 film [29] and the fifth-highest-grossing film distributed by Sony-Columbia, (behind Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy and Skyfall ). [30] 2012 is the second-highest-grossing film directed by Roland Emmerich, behind Independence Day (1996). [31] It earned $230.5 million on its worldwide opening weekend, the fourth-largest opening of 2009 and for Sony-Columbia. [32]
2012 ranked number one on its opening weekend, grossing $65,237,614 on its first weekend (the fourth-largest opening for a disaster film). [33] Outside North America it is the 28th-highest-grossing film, the fourth-highest-grossing 2009 film, [34] and the second-highest-grossing film distributed by Sony-Columbia, after Skyfall . 2012 earned $165.2 million on its opening weekend, the 20th-largest overseas opening. [35] In total earnings, the film's three highest-grossing territories after North America were China ($68.7 million), France and the Maghreb ($44.0 million), and Japan ($42.6 million). [36]
In 2020, the film received renewed interest during the COVID-19 pandemic, becoming the second-most popular film and seventh-most popular overall title on Netflix in March 2020. [37]
On Rotten Tomatoes, 2012 has an approval rating of 40% based on 242 reviews and an average rating of 5.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Roland Emmerich's 2012 provides plenty of visual thrills, but lacks a strong enough script to support its massive scope and inflated length." [38] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 49 out of 100 based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [39] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. [40]
Roger Ebert praised 2012, giving it 3+1⁄2 stars out of 4 and saying that it "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". [41] Ebert and Claudia Puig of USA Today called the film the "mother of all disaster movies". [41] [42] Dan Kois of The Washington Post gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, deeming it "the crowning achievement in Emmerich's long, profitable career as a destroyer of worlds." [43] Jim Schembri of The Age gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, describing it as "a great, big, fat, stupid, greasy cheeseburger of a movie designed to show, in vivid detail, what the end of human civilisation will look like according to his vast army of brilliant visual effects artists." [44]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone compared the film to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen , writing: "Beware 2012, which works the dubious miracle of almost matching Transformers 2 for sheer, cynical, mind-numbing, time-wasting, money-draining, soul-sucking stupidity." [45] Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail gave the film 1 out of 4 stars, writing: "As always in Emmerich's rollicking Armageddons, the cannon speaks with an expensive bang, while the fodder gets afforded nary a whimper." [46] Christopher Orr of The New Republic wrote that the film's "ludicrous thrills begin burning themselves out by the movie's midpoint", and added: "As the movie approaches its two-and-a-half hour mark, you, too, may feel that The End can't come soon enough." [47] Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, saying that it was "dim, dim, dim, and so absurdly overscaled that we're not supposed to mind." [48] Linda Barnard of the Toronto Star gave the film 1 out of 4 stars, writing: "the clunky script and kitchen-sink approach to Emmerich's global apocalypse tale... makes the movie fail on a bunch of fronts." [49]
Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
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Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards [51] | Best Visual Effects | Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Mike Vézina | Nominated |
NAACP Image Award [50] | Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture | Chiwetel Ejiofor | Nominated |
Danny Glover | Nominated | ||
Motion Picture Sound Editors [52] | Best Sound Editing – Music in a Feature Film | Fernand Bos, Ronald J. Webb | Nominated |
Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film | Fernand Bos, Ronald J. Webb | Nominated | |
Satellite Awards [53] | Best Sound (Editing and Mixing) | Paul N.J. Ottosson, Michael McGee, Rick Kline, Jeffrey J. Haboush, Michael Keller | Won |
Best Visual Effects | Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Mike Vézina | Won | |
Best Art Direction and Production Design | Barry Chusid, Elizabeth Wilcox | Nominated | |
Best Film Editing | David Brenner, Peter S. Elliot | Nominated | |
Saturn Awards [54] | Best Action, Adventure, or Thriller Film | 2012 | Nominated |
Best Special Effects | Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Mike Vézina | Nominated | |
Visual Effects Society Awards [55] | Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture | Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Josh Jaggars | Nominated |
Best Single Visual Effect of the Year | Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Josh R. Jaggars, Mohen Leo for "Escape from L.A." | Nominated | |
Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture | Haarm-Pieter Duiker, Marten Larsson, Ryo Sakaguchi, Hanzhi Tang for "Los Angeles Destruction" | Nominated |
In 2010 Entertainment Weekly reported a planned spin-off television series, 2013, which would have been a sequel to the film. [56] 2012 executive producer Mark Gordon told the magazine, "ABC will have an opening in their disaster-related programming after Lost ends, so people would be interested in this topic on a weekly basis. There's hope for the world despite the magnitude of the 2012 disaster as seen in the film. After the movie, there are some people who survive, and the question is how will these survivors build a new world and what will it look like. That might make an interesting TV series." [56] However, plans were canceled for budget reasons. [56] It would have been Emmerich's third film to spawn a spin-off; the first was Stargate (followed by Stargate SG-1 , Stargate Infinity , Stargate Atlantis , Stargate Universe ), and the second was Godzilla (followed by the animated Godzilla: The Series ).
Stargate is a 1994 science fiction action-adventure film directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich. The film is the first entry in the Stargate media franchise and stars Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Alexis Cruz, Mili Avital, and Viveca Lindfors. The plot centers on the titular "Stargate", an ancient ring-shaped device that creates a wormhole, enabling travel to a similar device elsewhere in the universe. The central plot explores the theory of extraterrestrial beings having an influence upon human civilization.
Independence Day is a 1996 American science fiction action film directed by Roland Emmerich, written by Emmerich and the film's producer Dean Devlin. The film stars an ensemble cast of Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, Randy Quaid, Robert Loggia, and Vivica A. Fox. The film follows disparate groups of people who converge in the Nevada desert in the aftermath of a worldwide attack by a powerful extraterrestrial race. With the other people of the world, they launch a counterattack on July 4—Independence Day in the United States.
The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film conceived, co-written, co-produced, and directed by Roland Emmerich, based on the 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, and starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Emmy Rossum, and Ian Holm. The film depicts catastrophic climatic effects following the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation, in which a series of extreme weather events usher in climate change and lead to a new ice age.
Roland Emmerich is a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is widely known for his science fiction and disaster films and has been called a "master of disaster" within the industry. His films, most of which are English-language Hollywood productions, have made more than $3 billion worldwide, including just over $1 billion in the United States, making him the 17th-highest-grossing Hollywood director of all time.
Spider-Man 3 is a 2007 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. Produced by Columbia Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, and Laura Ziskin Productions, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, it was directed by Sam Raimi from a screenplay he co-wrote with his brother Ivan and Alvin Sargent. It is the final installment in Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, and the sequel to Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2 (2004). The film stars Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, alongside Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, James Cromwell, Rosemary Harris, and J. K. Simmons. It also marks the final acting appearance of Cliff Robertson before his retirement in the same year and his subsequent death in 2011.
Stargate is a military science fiction media franchise based on the film directed by Roland Emmerich, which he co-wrote with producer Dean Devlin. The franchise is based on the idea of an alien wormhole device that enables nearly instantaneous travel across the cosmos. The franchise began with the film Stargate, released on October 28, 1994, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco, which grossed US$197 million worldwide. In 1997, Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner created a television series titled Stargate SG-1 as a sequel to the film. This show was joined by Stargate Atlantis in 2004, Stargate Universe in 2009, and a prequel web series, Stargate Origins, in 2018. Also consistent with the same story are a variety of books, video games and comic books, as well as the direct-to-DVD movies Stargate: Children of the Gods, Stargate: The Ark of Truth, and Stargate: Continuum, which concluded the first television show after 10 seasons.
Godzilla is a 1998 American monster film directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich. Produced by TriStar Pictures, Centropolis Entertainment, Fried Films, and Independent Pictures, and distributed by TriStar, it is a reboot of Toho Co., Ltd.'s Godzilla franchise. It is also the 23rd film in the franchise and the first Godzilla film to be completely produced by a Hollywood studio. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, Michael Lerner, and Harry Shearer. The film is dedicated to Tomoyuki Tanaka, the co-creator and producer of various Godzilla films, who died in April 1997. In the film, authorities investigate and battle a giant monster who migrates to New York City to nest its young.
Superhero films are movies centered on a superhero or a number of superheroes. These characters typically possess superhuman abilities, and will often have several distinct character archetypes and personalities. Films in this genre tend to address themes of power, justice, society, and the nature of evil, or the victory of good over evil. Superhero films typically blend elements of action, adventure, fantasy, and science fiction. Traditionally, the first film in a series about a particular superhero character often focuses on the hero's origin story and typically introduces the hero's nemesis.
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The Adventures of Tintin is a 2011 animated adventure film based on Hergé's Tintin comic book series. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, who produced the film with Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy. Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, and Joe Cornish wrote the screenplay for the film. It stars Jamie Bell as Tintin, Andy Serkis, and Daniel Craig. In the film, Tintin, Snowy, and Captain Haddock (Serkis) search for the treasure of the Unicorn, a ship once captained by Haddock's ancestor Sir Francis Haddock, but they face dangerous pursuit by Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine (Craig), who is the descendant of Sir Francis's nemesis Red Rackham.
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Knowing is a 2009 science fiction thriller film directed and co-produced by Alex Proyas and starring Nicolas Cage. The film, conceived and co-written by Ryne Douglas Pearson, was originally attached to a number of directors under Columbia Pictures, but it was placed in turnaround and eventually picked up by Escape Artists. Production was financially backed by Summit Entertainment. Knowing was filmed in Docklands Studios Melbourne, Australia, using various locations to represent the film's Boston-area setting. The film centers on the discovery of a strange paper filled with numbers and the possibility that they somehow predict the details of various disasters.
White House Down is a 2013 American political action thriller film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by James Vanderbilt. In the film, a divorced US Capitol Police officer attempts to rescue both his daughter and the President of the United States when a destructive terrorist assault occurs in the White House. The film stars Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Richard Jenkins, Joey King, and James Woods.
Independence Day: Resurgence is a 2016 American science fiction action film co-written, directed, and co-produced by Roland Emmerich and co-written and co-produced by Dean Devlin, serving as a sequel to Independence Day (1996). It stars an ensemble cast that consists of Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Maika Monroe, Travis Tope, William Fichtner, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Judd Hirsch. The film takes place twenty years after the events of the first film, during which the United Nations has collaborated to form the Earth Space Defense, an international military defense and research organization. Through reverse engineering, the world has fused the power of alien technology with humanity's and laid the groundwork to resist a second invasion.
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Despite dismal reviews, the film received an "A" Cinemascore for moviegoers under 18 and a "B+" overall.