Roland Emmerich

It seems a potential disaster has been averted.

Director Roland Emmerich, known to some as Michael Bay's top rival in the "who can make the crappiest blockbuster?" contest, says a TV series based on his latest movie, '2012', has been shelved.

Speaking to Movieweb, Emmerich said budget constraints have halted pre-production on the show, which would have served as a direct follow-up to his special effects-heavy disaster flick. The series was described as being similar in theme to 'Lost'. The plot would have followed survivors of the events depicted in the movie attempting to rebuild in Africa.

"It was just too big for TV, what we wanted to do," Emmerich said.

Check out our pals over at Inside Movies for the latest news and juicy tidbits regarding all things up on the silver screen.

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-- Defending the disaster-movie filmmaker Roland Emmerich is a daunting task, but an Inside Movies blogger is up for the challenge.

The new Columbia Pictures disaster epic, 2012, proposes what many New Age folk believe is inevitable. The Roland Emmerich movie looks ahead to December 21, 2012 as the end of the world because the Mayan Calendar cycle ends on that day.

So, the cinematic seas rise, and the ground shakes -- sending scores of mid-range stars scrambling for their lives. Syfy previews both the movie and its long-held cataclysm theory on a new special, 2012: Startling New Secrets. Premiering Sunday, November 8 at 9 p.m., the two-hour show "delves into the Mayan Mystery surrounding 2012."

I'm going out on a limb here and predicting the show will fail to ask the obvious question: If the Mayans were so adept at looking centuries into the future to predict the end of the world, why weren't they clairvoyant enough to foresee the end of their long-extinct civilization and prevent its collapse?