EXCLUSIVE: Roland Emmerich's 2012 TV Series No Longer in the Works

Shortly before 2012 debuted in theaters, Roland Emmerich made the press rounds revealing that he was planning a television sequel based on his latest disaster epic. The series was said to be similar in theme to ABC's Lost, with Earth's survivors arriving in Africa to rebuild humanity. Sadly, the scope of the project proved too big for the constraints of serialized television. At this moment in time, the show is being put on hold. Emmerich revealed that pre-production on the purposed 2013 had halted while chatting with us about the upcoming DVD and Blu-ray release of 2012, which is set to hit store shelves on March 2nd, 2010.

Here's what he had to say about the no defunct concept:

It has been reported that you plan on turning 2012 into a television series. Where does production on that stand at this point in time?

Roland Emmerich: We tried to do that. But the TV people soon realized what we really wanted to do with the concept. They said, "You cannot do this on television." So I said, "Let's not do it. It was just too big for TV. What we wanted to do."

So that TV show is dead in the water?

Roland Emmerich: 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."

Is there any plan to turn that idea into a feature film?

Roland Emmerich: No, no, no. It was not a sequel. It was a story you could only tell once. There was no sequel to Noah's Ark. 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."

2012 arrives on DVD and Blu-ray March 2nd, 2010.

2012 was released November 13th, 2009 and stars John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Thomas McCarthy, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover. The film is directed by Roland Emmerich.

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• The big budget show was originally set to focus on the survivors rebuilding humanity off the coast of Africa.