John Cusack will step into Roland Emmerich's latest epic for his next project. According to Variety, Cusack has signed on for 2012.

The trade also reports that Chiwetel Ejiofor is in talks to join the project as well. The film will center on a researcher who finds a portal to a parralel universe and he goes into that world to contact his double to warn him and try to prevent the upcoming apocalypse that the ancient Mayans predicted.

Emmerich wrote the script with Harald Kloser, and Emmerich will produce as well, but it is not clear if he will direct as well. Production is planned for a July start in Los Angeles, barring a Screen Actors Guild strike.