Plot
In 2009, American geologist Adrian Helmsley visits astrophysicist Satnam Tsurutani in India and learns that neutrinos from a huge solar flare are heating Earth's core. In Washington, D.C., Helmsley presents his information to White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser, who brings him to meet U.S. President Thomas Wilson.
In 2010, Wilson and other world leaders begin a secret project to ensure humanity's survival. China and the G8 nations begin building nine arks, each capable of carrying 100,000 people, in the Himalayas near Cho Ming, Tibet. Nima, a Buddhist monk, is evacuated and his brother Tenzin joins the ark project. Funding is raised by secretly selling tickets at €1 billion per person. By 2011, articles of value are moved to the arks with the help of art expert and First Daughter Laura Wilson.
In 2012, struggling Los Angeles science-fiction writer Jackson Curtis is a chauffeur for Russian billionaire Yuri Karpov. Jackson's former wife Kate and their children Noah and Lilly live with Kate's boyfriend, plastic surgeon and pilot Gordon Silberman. Jackson takes Noah and Lilly camping in Yellowstone National Park. When they enter an area fenced off by the United States Army, they are caught and brought to Adrian, who has read Jackson's books. After being released they meet conspiracy theorist Charlie Frost, who hosts a radio show from the park.
That night, after the military evacuates Yellowstone, Jackson watches Charlie's video of Charles Hapgood's theory that polar shifts and the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar predict a 2012 phenomenon and the end of the world. Charlie reveals that anyone attempting to inform the public was or will be killed. After Jackson and his children return home, earthquakes begin in California. Jackson rents a private plane and rescues his family as the Earth-crust displacement begins, causing a 10.9 magnitude earthquake. Jackson and his family escape Los Angeles as much of the city collapses into the Pacific Ocean.
The group flies to Yellowstone to retrieve a map from Charlie with the arks' location. As they leave, the Yellowstone Caldera erupts; Charlie is killed while covering the eruption. The group lands in Las Vegas to find a larger plane and meet Yuri, his twin sons Alec and Oleg, his girlfriend Tamara and their pilot Sasha. Sasha and Gordon fly them out in an Antonov An-500 as the Yellowstone ash cloud envelops Las Vegas.
Adrian, Carl, and Laura fly to the arks on Air Force One. Wilson remains in Washington, D.C. to address the nation while millions of people die in earthquakes and megatsunamis worldwide, including himself. With the presidential line of succession broken, Carl assumes the position of acting commander-in-chief.
As Jackson's group reaches China, their plane runs out of fuel. Sasha continues flying the plane as the others escape in a Bentley Continental Flying Spur stored in the cargo hold. Sasha is killed when the plane slides off a cliff. The others are spotted by Chinese Air Force helicopters. Yuri and his sons, who have tickets, are brought to the arks but the Curtis family, with Tamara and Gordon, are abandoned. The remaining group is picked up by Nima and brought to the arks with his grandparents. With Tenzin's help, they stow away on Ark 4, where the U.S. contingent is located. As a megatsunami breaches the Himalayas and approaches the site, an impact driver lodges in the ark-door gears, keeping a boarding gate open, which prevents the ship's engines from starting. In the ensuing chaos, Gordon, Yuri, and Tamara are killed. Tenzin is injured, the ark begins filling with water and is set adrift. Jackson and Noah dislodge the tool and the crew regains control of the Ark before it strikes Mount Everest. Jackson is reunited with his family and reconciles with Kate.
Twenty-seven days later, the waters are receding. The arks approach the Cape of Good Hope, where the Drakensberg mountains, now the highest mountain range on Earth, are emerging. Adrian and Laura begin a relationship, while Jackson and Kate rekindle their romance. And from space, it is revealed that the continent of Africa, plus a few areas of Europe and Asia, has risen above the waters and is the only landmass on the planet.
Alternate ending
An alternate ending appears in the film's DVD release. After Captain Michaels (the Ark 4 captain) announces that they are heading for the Cape of Good Hope, Adrian learns by phone that his father, Harry, and Harry's friend Tony survived a megatsunami which struck their cruise ship, the Genesis. Adrian and Laura strike up a friendship with the Curtises; Kate thanks Laura for taking care of Lily, Laura tells Jackson that she enjoyed his book Farewell Atlantis, and Jackson and Adrian have a conversation reflecting the events of the worldwide crisis. Jackson returns Noah's cell phone, which he recovered during the Ark 4 flood. The ark finds the shipwrecked Genesis and her survivors on a beach.[9][10]
Cast
John Cusack as Jackson Curtis, a struggling writer and a father of two children[11]
Chiwetel Ejiofor as geologist Adrian Helmsley, chief science advisor to the U.S. President[12]
Amanda Peet as Kate Curtis, a medical student and Jackson's former wife[13]
Thandie Newton as Laura Wilson, an art expert and President Wilson's daughter
Liam James as Noah Curtis, Jackson and Kate's son
Morgan Lily as Lilly Curtis, Jackson and Kate's daughter
Tom McCarthy as Gordon Silberman, a plastic surgeon and Kate's boyfriend[14]
Danny Glover as Thomas Wilson, the President of the United States
Oliver Platt as Carl Anheuser, White House Chief of Staff
Zlatko Burić as Yuri Karpov, a Russian billionaire and former boxer
Beatrice Rosen as Tamara Jikan, Yuri's girlfriend
Alexandre and Philippe Haussmann as Alec and Oleg Karpov, Yuri's twin sons
Johann Urb as Sasha, Yuri's pilot
John Billingsley as Frederick West, a colleague of Adrian
Ryan McDonald as Scotty, Adrian and Frederick's assistant
Jimi Mistry as Satnam Tsurutani, an astrophysicist who discovers the neutrinos which are warming Earth's crust
Agam Darshi as Aparna Tsurutani, Satnam's wife
Woody Harrelson as Charlie Frost, a fringe science conspiracy theorist and radio talk-show host
Chin Han as Tenzin, an ark worker who attempts to save his family
Osric Chau as Nima, a Buddhist monk and Tenzin's brother
Tseng Chang as Grandfather Sonam, their grandfather
Lisa Lu as Grandmother Sonam, their grandmother
Blu Mankuma as Harry Helmsley, Adrian's father and Tony Delgatto's vocal partner
George Segal as Tony Delgatto, a jazz singer
Stephen McHattie as Captain Michaels, captain of Ark 4
Patrick Bauchau as Roland Picard, director of the Louvre, who is killed with a car bomb by the U.S. government
Henry O as Lama Rinpoche, a Buddhist monk
Karin Konoval as Sally, President Wilson's secretary
Dean Marshall as the Ark 4 communications officer
Zinaid Memisevic as Sergey Makarenko, the President of Russia
Merrilyn Gann as the German Chancellor
Lyndall Grant as the governor of California
Vincent Cheng as a Chinese colonel
Leonard Tenisci as the Italian Prime Minister
Elizabeth Richard as Queen Elizabeth II
Frank C. Turner as Preacher
Production
Development
Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods was listed in 2012's credits as the film's inspiration,[15] 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."[16] 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 a budget projection and story plans from Emmerich and his representatives, a process repeated by the director after Independence Day (1996) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004).[17]
Later that month, Sony Pictures Entertainment received the rights to the spec script. Planned for distribution by Columbia Pictures,[18] 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,[6] began in Kamloops, Savona, Cache Creek and Ashcroft, British Columbia.[19] With a Screen Actors Guild strike looming, the film's producers made a contingency plan to salvage it.[20] Uncharted Territory, Digital Domain, Double Negative, Scanline, and Sony Pictures Imageworks were hired to create 2012's computer-animated visual effects.
The film depicts the destruction of several cultural and historical icons around the world. Emmerich said that the Kaaba was considered for selection, but Kloser was concerned about a possible fatwā against him.[21][22]
Marketing
2012 was marketed by the fictional Institute for Human Continuity, featuring a book by Jackson Curtis (Farewell Atlantis),[7] streaming media, blog updates and radio broadcasts from zealot Charlie Frost on his website, This Is The End.[7] On November 12, 2008, the studio released the first trailer for 2012. With a tsunami surging over the Himalayas and a purportedly scientific message that the world would end in 2012, the trailer's message was that international governments were not preparing their populations for the event. The trailer 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".[23]
The studio introduced a viral marketing website operated by the Institute for Human Continuity, where filmgoers could register for a lottery number to be part of a small population which would be rescued from the global destruction.[8] David Morrison of NASA, who 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."[24] Another marketing website promoted Farewell Atlantis, a fictional novel about the events of 2012.[7]
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.[25] 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".[25]
Soundtrack
The film's score was composed by Harald Kloser and Thomas Wander. Singer Adam Lambert contributed a song to the film, "Time for Miracles", and expressed his gratitude in an MTV interview.[26] 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.[27] The trailer track was "Master of Shadows" by Two Steps From Hell.
Release
2012 was released to cinemas on November 13, 2009, in Sweden, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, India, the United States, and Japan.[28] According to the studio, the film could have been completed for a summer release but the delay allowed more time for production.
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.[29] A 3D version was released in Cinemex theaters in Mexico in February 2010.[30]
Reception
Box office
2012 grossed $166.1 million in North America and $603.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $769.7 million against a production budget of $200 million,[3] making it the first film to gross over $700 million worldwide without crossing $200 million domestically.[31] Worldwide, it was the fifth-highest-grossing 2009 film[32] and the fifth-highest-grossing film distributed by Sony-Columbia, (behind Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy and Skyfall).[33] 2012 is the second-highest-grossing film directed by Roland Emmerich, behind Independence Day (1996).[34] It earned $230.5 million on its worldwide opening weekend, the fourth-largest opening of 2009 and for Sony-Columbia.[35]
2012 ranked number one on its opening weekend, grossing $65,237,614 on its first weekend (the fourth-largest opening for a disaster film).[36] Outside North America it is the 28th-highest-grossing film, the fourth-highest-grossing 2009 film,[37] 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.[38] Its largest opening was in France and the Maghreb ($18.0 million). 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).[39]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 39% based on 242 reviews and an average rating of 5.02/10. 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."[40] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 49 out of 100 based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[41] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[42]
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".[43] Ebert and Claudia Puig of USA Today called the film the "mother of all disaster movies".[43][44] But Peter Travers of Rolling Stone compared it to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: "Beware 2012, which works the dubious miracle of almost matching Transformers 2 for sheer, cynical, mind-numbing, time-wasting, money-draining, soul-sucking stupidity
