Director Roland Emmerich’s new disaster movie 2012 is about to hit theaters — and as the Mother Nature Network recently found out, there was an effort to keep the $260 million dollar film as green as possible.

Emmerich, who drives a hybrid and powers his home with solar panels, said “After making The Day After Tomorrow, I said to myself, ‘From now on my movies should have a green footprint.’”

For the production of 2012, carbon offsets were purchased, biofuel was used for generators, sets were recycled and what couldn’t be recycled was donated to Habitat for Humanity. Said Emmerich’s producer partner Michael Wimer, who also drives an all-electric RAV4 “It was important to us. Changes are happening to the planet, and you either take responsibility or you don’t.”

So far, early reviews of the film are playing up its unintentional comedic attributes — saying, it’s so bad, it’s good. “Emmerich supposedly spent $260m to give you the biggest experience for your ticket dollar and in this regard, he has succeeded tremendously, while, intentionally or otherwise, also delivering one of 2009’s best comedies,” said one critic.

Aw, what the hell — we could use a good laugh; especially if Woody Harrelson’s conspiracy-nut character turns out to be as ass-crazy hilarious as he looks online.

2012 opens November 13th.

The ancient Mayans believed that the world would come to complete ruin in the year 2012. Present day Hollywood predicts this could be a box office success in Summer 2009.

It has already been announced that John Cusack will star in the Roland Emmerich film and now Woody Harrelson has revealed to MTV that he has joined the cast of the upcoming apocalyptic thriller 2012 as well.

“I play a guy who’s been talking for a long time, the whole world thinks he’s crazy,” Harrelson said of his character. “But he’s been talking that there’s gonna be hell to pay for what’s been going on ecologically and everything.”

Harrelson doesn’t know why they thought of him for the role, but for those of us who know of his outspoken activist ways, it seems a very natural fit.

Other actors due to star in 2012 include Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Amanda Peet (fortunately the subject of vaccines isn’t in the storyline), Oliver Platt, and Chin Han.