2012 TV show no longer happening

In the run up to the release of CGI disaster-fest 2012 director Roland Emmerich revealed that he was planning to make a TV show based on the film which would follow the events of the films ending. It would be called 2013 and Emmerich said it would contain similar themes to those in ABC’s Lost (a bunch of survivors stranded somewhere). However in an interview with MovieWeb Emmerich said that it’s unlikely the TV show will come into function as “it was just too big for TV”.

[Spoilers for those who haven't seen 2012]

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.”

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.”

After reading his description I would actually be interested in seeing a show like that. It has a District 9 vibe to it (without the aliens obviously). Emmerich says that producer Mark Gordon (Grey’s Anatomy, 2012) is trying to find a way to make it cheaper in the hope of attracting studios, although he doesn’t think it will happen.

Would you have been interested in a 2012 TV series?