If you were looking forward to the new series from Roland Emmerich based on last year's disaster movie 2012, then you'll be sad to learn that according to Emmerich the new series has been shelved due to budget issues.

The project was being called 2013 and would have picked up following characters from the movie as they rebuilt life on Earth after the 2012 disaster.  Emmerich recently told Movieweb, "It was just too big for TV, what we wanted to do," citing budget constraints as the reason for halting pre-production of the show.

"I don't think it will happen," Emmerich admitted. "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.""

But is 2013 really dead? In reality the project now sits in the hands of Mark Gordon, the producer of Grey's Anatomy.  Gordon is trying to lower the show's cost and still get it on the air, but Emmerich is out of the picture and seems convinced the project is done.

It's still not entirely clear what this series would have even been.  It was described once as being similar to Lost, but with the movie focusing on the CGI-heavy disaster part of the story, what could have been so expensive about the rebuilding part?  For that matter, why was Roland Emmerich so involved in the idea in the first place?  I'm not one to typically judge a show while it's in pre-production, but Roland Emmerich isn't exactly known for mysterious plots with complex and compelling characters.  I mean, I love his disaster movies.  It's fun to see things from our everyday lives get blown up, hit by tidal ways, and have cars thrown on them, but most of us can only tolerate a couple of hours of that kind of fun.  When I give an hour of my time every single week to a show, it has to be compelling and pull me along for the ride.  I simply can't imagine how 2013 would have ever done that, regardless what their budget had been.  Still, I'm always up for new series, and I would have given this one a chance, had it made it to the small screen.

How about you? How do you feel about not getting to see this series after all? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: TVSquad

'2012' TV Series Laid to Rest?

More good news for the sci-fi geek in all of us! Even before the theatrical premiere of 2012 comes news that a television series based on the movie is in the works. Roland Emmerich, the producer/director of 2012, has disclosed that the small-screen version will take place in 2013 and center around the the "resetting" of Earth:

“The plan is that it is 2013 and it’s about what happens after the disaster,” Emmerich told EW while walking the red carpet for the 2012 premiere Tuesday. “It is about the resettling of Earth. That is very, very fascinating. (2012 writer/producer) Harald Kloser and I came up with the idea and we have the luxury of having a producer on the film who is a big TV producer, Mark Gordon. We said to Mark, ‘Why don’t you do a TV show that picks up where the movie leaves off and call it 2013?’ 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.”

Here's some more good news. According to Emmerich, ABC has expressed an interest in the series as another possible replacement for LOST after it completes it's six year run (*moment of silence*).

With FlashForward doing very well in the ratings department for ABC and this week's highly successful premiere of V doing equally well, can we expect to see a wholly night of science fiction on the network in the near future?

Does anyone else out there think that such a block of viewer-specific programming could rescue the rerun-heavy graveyard now known as Saturday night?

2012: The Series?