J.J. Abrams Developing Earthquake

It might not be Cloverfield 2, but it definitely will be another thrilling film. J.J. Abrams is officially producing a currently untitled disaster film involving an earthquake. David Seltzer, who wrote the original 1976 Omen, is working with Abrams to write the script and develop the project. As is obviously the case, no further details have been revealed, besides that “relationships will be at the core” like in Cloverfield. It may be hard to get interested in something with so few details, but considering I’m a big Abrams fan and considering this sounds like another project that will knock us on our feet (literally) like Cloverfield, I’m definitely intrigued to hear about it. I just hope that the surprise wasn’t ruined already…

To get this rumor out of the way, Hollywood Reporter confirms that this film has absolutely nothing to do with the 1974 movie Earthquake with Charlton Heston (that inspired a badass amusement park ride at Universal Studios). They also mention that “at the moment, he only plans to produce the Earthquake revamp,” which is I guess a publicity attempt to suppress any more discussion about Cloverfield 2. The film is being developed at Abrams’ production company Bad Robot and will most likely appear sometime in 2009, considering it sounds like they’re trying to get moving on this project by the end of the year.

While I know that most people may not immediately be interested in this, I’ll admit that I’ve already been sucked in. There’s no denying that Abrams has a great amount of intimacy that he brings, even on films he produces, and I’m already expecting this to have that similar Cloverfield feeling, but with an earthquake instead of a monster. As Adam Quigley put it best on the /FilmCast earlier tonight when discussing the news, “maybe we’ll finally get to see a great version of a Roland Emmerich disaster movie.” I definitely hope that’s the case and with Abrams, and even Seltzer, involved, I’m sure that’s probably how it will turn out. What are your thoughts about Abrams focusing on disasters instead of monsters?

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