Based on the 2012 phenomenon, its plot follows novelist Jackson Curtis (Cusack) and geologist Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) as they struggle to survive an eschatological sequence of events including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, megatsunamis, and a global flood.

In 2009, American geologist Adrian Helmsley visits astrophysicist Satnam Tsurutani in East India and learns that a previously undiscovered 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.

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.

Realizing they need a larger plane to fly to Asia, the group lands at McCarran International Airport south of Downtown Las Vegas to locate one.

Adrian, Carl, and First Daughter Laura fly to the arks while President Wilson remains in the White House to address the nation.

As the plane touches down on a glacier, the party uses a Bentley Flying Spur stored in the hold to escape, while Sasha 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.

Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods was listed in 2012's credits as the film's inspiration,[12] 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.

[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.

[17] Uncharted Territory, Digital Domain, Double Negative, Scanline, and Sony Pictures Imageworks were hired to create the film's visual effects.

Adam Lambert contributed a song to the film, "Time for Miracles", which was originally written by Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider.

[19] 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.

[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.

[23] 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.

[23] 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.

The critics 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.

[41] 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".

[42][43] 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.

"[44] 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.

"[46] 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.

[57] 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.