December 21, 2012. This is the last date that is recorded on the Mayan calender. Some say it’s the end of the world. Some say there will be a great shift in human consciousness. Some say that Hollywood will stop making really bad movies.
Okay, that last one was mine. But it seems that Hollywood has snatched onto this latest bit and in the grand tradition of competing movie concepts (Deep Impact vs Armageddon), there are several projects coming to the Big Screen on this one.
Whitley Strieber (remember him, the guy who was abducted by aliens and wrote many book about it?) wrote a book called 2012: The War For Souls. Micheal Bay (Transformers fame) is going to direct a box office smash based on the book. In a huge bidding war, Roland Emmerich’s project, simply titled 2012 is now being put together by Sony. It had originally been a Nickelodeon project. Kind of makes you wonder what kind of movie it will be. And then there’s the Doomsday factor.
2012, has John Cusack as the great hero of the story. His family goes on vacation in December 2012 and he meets his alternate self in a parallel universe who is going to help him avert the apocalypse of the Mayan’s predictions. Also on hand are Chiwetel Ejiofor (American Gangster,Children of Men), Danny Glover (Color Purple, Lethal Weapon, Dreamgirls), Thandie Newton (Crash, Norbit) and Oliver Platt (Three Musketeers, Lake Placid, Martian Child). The most interesting aspect of this movie seems to be the interconnection of the cast. Cusack and Platt were in Martian Child recently. Ejiofor and Glover are together in Toussaint (Glover directing and Ejiofor starring).Glover and Newton were in Beloved together. As for Emmerich, he has had some blockbusters and some misses. On the hit side there was The Patriot and Independence Day. On the miss side is the deplorable Godzilla and Day After Tomorrow.
2012: The War For Souls, based on Strieber’s book, has lizard-like aliens from a parallel earth invading our Earth to enslave humanity and eat our souls. Lots of special effects, from the destruction of the great pyramid at Giza to the inter-universe gateways as well. Not much else (like cast or writers) is available on this project, except that its due out in 2010. The only connection between this movie and Emmerich’s project is the use of the Mayan calender as the catalyst. Oh, and the part about the apocalyptic events. And the parallel universe. Hmmm, guess Roland just needs to add the soul eating lizards to match Bay, huh?
Not to be left out, the Internet has its own version. A free on-line movie called 2012: Doomsday. Four strangers are drawn on a journey of faith to an ancient temple in the heart of Mexico. First time director Nick Everhart co-wrote this with Naoimi Selfman, who penned the 2004 low-budget psychological horror story Evil Eyes. Cast includes Cliff De Young (The Unit, The Young and The Restless), Dale Midkiff (TV’s Time Trax and King’s Pet Semetary), Amy Dolenz (Pumpkinhead II and Shogun Cop), Danae Nason (One Life To Live and Invasion of The Pod People) and Joshua Lee (This Modern Life). And if you don’t want to watch this free on-line movie, you can always go to Amazon.com and buy the direct-to-video production for just $21.99. But with only 5 more left in stock (as of this writing) you may need to hurry.
I understand all the hype built up around the December 21, 2012 date since it is kind of unusual to end a calender shy of the actual year end. But its just a date. What if the rest of the calender was washed away? I mean won’t everyone be embarrassed if the world ended on December 31, 2012? Or what if they ran out of room when they wrote it in the first place? Or what if the guy’s arm just got tired and he said “oh thats enough”? Does this really deserve several movies based on it? With limited Hollywood funds, maybe some other really good books out there deserve to get the movie treatment rather than bundling it all up on one concept. I personally would love to see James Patterson’s Maximum Ride books made into a movie. But hey, thats Hollywood types for you.
For my money, I think the best bet for this will be to wait for the Micheal Bay version. Strieber may be nuts but with Bay at the helm, it should be more interesting than Cusack as the action hero. For 2012: Doomsday, I’d wait for it to come to cable (which shouldn’t be too long a wait). Same for Cusack’s 2012.
Sources:
2012: The War For Souls
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988032/
2012
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988032/
2012: Doomsday
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132130/
