If there’s one thing the mid-late 90s taught us – much like the mid-late 70s taught us, and the mid-late 2020s will probably teach us – it’s that watching people and the geography that’s crawling with them get annihilated is great fun. The genre sputtered through the 2000s with The Core, The Day After Tomorrow and Wedding Planner, but has since gone into hibernation after Poseidon.
Whether it was the onslaught of real world troubles (who wants to go see buildings blow up and burn when you can enjoy the same fear in real life?) or the genre loop getting tired (I vote the latter), things have been quiet on the disaster front, unless you’d like to count Shrek 3.
Enter May 9, 2007: along comes a film ripped from the headlines of 1998: Screen Gems has acquired the spoof Armageddagain: The Day Before Tomorrow. I don’t want to dump on this outright (who doesn’t enjoy a well-made spoof), so I’ll rely on director Robert Monoit’s previous effort on a film called Pearl Harbor II: Pearlmageddon. Apparently there’s an Armageddon fixation in there somewhere and it’s paying off with Official selections from film festivals like US Comedy Arts, Seattle International and Florida Film. Take that as you will.
And that’s it. It’s a spoof. With a disaster spoof title. With red-haired character actor Noah Emmerich producing. Shooting will begin in the clammy months of August and will shoot for an Armageddon 10-year anniversary release sometime in 2008.