RolandEmmerich

Not long after the film 2012 hit theaters, its director Roland Emmerich was running around telling people that they were planning a spin-off television show that would follow survivors of the first film attempting to rebuild humanity after arriving in Africa. Speaking to Movieweb about the upcoming 2012 DVD, Emmerich now says the TV show is most likely dead in the water because what they wanted to do was just too expensive for TV.

He says, "It's not totally dead. Mark Gordon is still trying to come up with an idea on how to make it cheaper. I don't think it will happen. I had a certain vision. We realized what kind of compromises we were going to have to make. Because of that, I said, "No thank you." Speaking more about the plot, Emmerich added, "It would have been a great TV show. Because it would have dealt with the facts of arriving in Africa. We would have seen what happened had Cape Town survived. Those people already living there would be majorly pissed. Because the ships didn't take them. There was this whole political edge to it. It would have been a very political TV show. It had such big themes. It was about reaching for the stars. There was an economic reality that kept it from becoming a reality. We didn't want to compromise. We said, "Let's not do it."

Hey, no skin off my back -- Emmerich's films are usually more about the spectacle than the characters, and it's easy to lose yourself in spectacle for two hours, but week in and week out? No thanks.

What about you? Pissed there's not going to be a 2012 TV show?

As if the thought of one Independence Day sequel wasn't enough to wet your pants, Roland Emmerich now says he plans to make two. While it seems like his Independence Day sequel answer changes with each interview he gives, this latest bit of madness is perhaps the most fascinating. Essentially, Emmerich told MTV that he wants two do two movies with a large story arc and that they will pick up right where the original left off.

As far as what to call it, Emmerich threw out the ridiculous title ID4-Ever parts I and II. Personally I think the guy is just off his rocker and having fun with everyone. Seriously, there's no way in hell Will Smith is returning to make two Independence Day sequels. Maybe one, but never two. They'd have to pay him a billion dollars or more to return to this franchise. Could I see another Independence Day in theaters. Yes, totally. And it'd make a killing, too. But there's only so many ways aliens can come down to earth and blow things up. Where else do you go with that?

[Welcome to the Sci-Fi Lunch Break, where we'll be supplying you with a cool bit of audio/visual goodness to break up the monotony of the work day. You bring the turkey on rye, we'll bring you something out of this world to watch while you eat it.]

Note for the spoiler-weary: the below video reveals little the trailers for 2012 haven't already shown.

So much of our beautiful planet gets blasted apart in 2012 that it's hard to pin point just one centerpiece of the film. One of the most memorable sequences, however, involves a particular geological feature of Yellowstone National Park that is currently missing in the year 2009; namely it exists now and doesn't in another three years. So if you'd like to see what kind of efforts are put into smiting a national treasure, click on to see just how much of it was shot practically, and how much of it involves planting a Winnebago on a gimble and blasting it with fire, which may just be my favorite behind-the-scenes image ever.

Soon we're going to be able to see what happens after the world "ends." The movie hasn't smashed its way to screens yet, but Roland Emmerich (director and producer of 2012) has told Entertainment Weekly that they're already working on transporting the story to the smaller screen, saying there's "plenty to do" with a television series.

Before you wonder how the hell they could take a show through the potential end of the world and not die in the budgetary stress of big explosions and effects -- not to mention staving off the apocalypse if ratings are good and more seasons are ordered -- this will be a continuation of the film. "The plan is that it is 2013 and it's about what happens after the disaster. It is about the resettling of the Earth." Writer Harold Kloser came up with the idea, and they took it to TV producer Mark Gordon (who worked on the film). Emmerich says: "I think it will focus on a group of people who survived but not on the boats ... maybe they were on a piece of land that was spared or one that became an island in the process of the crust moving. There are so many possibilities of what they could do and I'd be excited to watch it."

Sounds a smidge like Lost, eh? That's a wee bit convenient since rumor has it ABC is in talks for the series, and while Gordon wouldn't confirm that information, he noted the network's "opening in their disaster-related programming after Lost ends."

Are you game for a new disaster series where folks must find their way through a newly fashioned Earth?

If you're like me, you wake up every day with one thought on your mind: Is today the day when aliens will finally attack Earth? Because you know it's coming eventually, especially if Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich continue to make movies -- so what's the real deal, then? How close are we to discovering life on another planet? And I don't mean ice crystals, or whatever the hell they look for these days. Who gets excited over an ice crystal on Jupiter's moon? Nah, we want actual aliens who fly spaceships and shoot lasers ... right?

Well, good news for you space freaks is that 32 new planets have been discovered in outside our solar system. 32 freaking planets! News about the new planets was recently announced at a conference in Portugal, and according to Wired, several of the newly discovered planets are what they call 'super-Earths', which means they have a mass only a few times that of our planet and could potentially contain Earth-like environments. From Nature.com: "... the planets may not be the biggest, fattest, smallest or Earthiest, but they show that the chances of us finding Earth-like planets are pretty high."

So ... what are you naming your alien baby?

[via NPR]

Though no one asked for a sequel to Independence Day (because didn't Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum use a computer virus to rid us of those damn aliens the last time?), that's not stopping special effects superhero Roland Emmerich from wanting to churn one out for the hell of it. Only problem is ... it's going to take a lot more than an arm and a leg to get Will Smith back in an alien fighting mood.

While speaking to Emmerich about 2012, Latino Review learned that there's a script and a story for Independence Day 2, but right now 20th Century Fox is delaying it because they can't come to terms with Emmerich, writer-producer Dean Devlin and Will Smith -- all of whom want to make sure they're paid, like, a trillion dollars for this thing. According to Emmerich, Fox wanted them to make the sequel without Will Smith, but the writer-director insists he star in it. "I said Will is essential for us, for this movie and actually for the audience too. And, so, it's in limbo and lately the studios are fighting. Like gross players, and Will is a gross player and is probably the only gross player right now who's worth his gross. So we'll see what happens. I would love to do it," Emmerich noted.

Unfortunately for those who feel like a good laugh today, Emmerich did not divulge any story details except to say that it's "a very really good great story, a very cool one." I'm not even going to begin to ask you to understand that quote because it makes as much sense as the ending for Independence Day did. Seriously? A f**king computer virus? How will they destroy the aliens this time around -- by un-friending them on Facebook?

Last night Sony Pictures executed what is known as a "media roadblock", in which they blanketed all of the major broadcast networks and roughly 450 television stations in North America with a two-minute clip from Roland Emmerich's 2012. Apparently it was the largest media roadblock ever, and the projected audience was somewhere around 110 million. How many of those 110 million will actually show up to see this flick when it hits theaters on November 13th? That we do not know, but I think it's safe to say that Sony succeeded in making audiences aware of its existence.

Along with the two-minute clip that aired on television, a five-minute clip from the film has arrived online. I believe this is the same footage that was shown at Comic Con, and it features John Cusack frantically trying to get his loved ones out of California because, as he says, "California is going down!" (Ah, I love it -- Cusack channeling his inner Nicolas Cage. What's better than that?)

Watch the clip after the jump.