Good luck avoiding the multi-channel blitz for Sony's 2012

Enough of that cryptic outdoor, viral-Comic-Con under-the-radar stuff—Sony Pictures has decided it's time to bring out the big guns for Roland Emmerich's latest disaster flick, 2012. And if you happen to be watching ad-supported TV on the night of Oct. 1, you'll be hard pressed not to see a sneak peek of the apocalyptic thriller that will air simultaneously across the Big Three networks, local stations, Spanish-language networks and a whopping 89 cable channels. The studio's predicting a reach of 110 million viewers, an audience even bigger than the Super Bowl's. That doesn't come cheap—the ad buy is pegged at $4 million, which is at least a million bucks heftier than a 30-second Super Bowl spot. The special-effects-driven feature, from the guy who brought us Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, stars Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Amanda Peet and John Cusack as survivors of a global cataclysm. Sony has been seeding the movie with sci-fi fans via graffiti-ed billboards and a District 9-style Web campaign, including ThisIsTheEnd.com and a site dubbed the Institute for Human Continuity with its tagline, "Ensuring the end is just the beginning." On it, fans can register for a lottery number to be part of the population that's saved from the inevitable end of days. Cheery! But a guerrilla campaign can only go so far, and no studio would trust a $200 million flick to word of mouth these days. For three more minutes of the film, the Oct. 1 sneak will direct viewers to fancast.com or Comcast on Demand. Expect tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes, oh my. The movie opens Nov. 13.

—T.L. Stanley