Michael Bay to Direct '2012: The War for Souls'

The creative team behind the upcoming summer movie "Transformers" are reuniting to bring sci-fi author Whitley Strieber's upcoming novel "2012: The War for Souls" to movie screens for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Director Michael Bay and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are in preliminary talks to bring the novel to the big screen. Michael Bay will direct while Orci and Kurtzman with their company Kurtzman/Orci will produce.

The novel "2012: The War for Souls'" story revolves around an academic researcher who discovers that there are multiple copies of the Earth that co-exist in different dimensions. All of the versions of Earth are threatened by an apocalypse that is to occur in 2012. 2012 is the date of an apocalypse prophesized in the ancient Mayan calendar.

The researcher makes contact with another version of himself on another Earth by opening a portal into a parallel universe. He contacts the double to try and stop the prophecy from being fulfilled. "2012: The War for Souls" is expected to be released in the fall by St. Martin imprint Tor.

The team behind the "2012: The War for Souls" is currently searching for a writer to adapt the story for the big screen.

"We've been looking for a way to have the kinds of thrillers that we are interested in that still take into account the latest theories and discoveries in Egyptology and in quantum mechanics and all those things that Mr. Strieber is so knowledge about," Orci said.

"The idea of a man teaming up with himself to solve a cosmic mystery was way too good for us to pass up," Kurtzman said.

Kurtzman/Orci company execs Mandy Safavi and Steven Puri brought the book into Kurtzman/Orci at the same time Bay's producing partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form received it from executive Matt Smith. Bay suggested that the two groups team up again for the project when he heard that Kurtzman/Orci had it.

"2012: The War for Souls" will be the third time that the three have teamed up for a film. The first project the team did together was Bay's sci-fi thriller "The Island."