John Cusack is in negotiations to play a heroic character faced with a cataclysmic event and resolute to save his family in a new film from director Roland Emmerich, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Should all the pieces fall in, Cusack will portray a divorced dad who struggles between aspirations as a writer and a recurrent job as a limo driver. When the world as we know it stands a great chance of being destroyed, he strives to save his family.

Columbia Pictures plant to release the apocalyptic “2012” in July 2009. British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (“American Gangster”) is in talks to co-star. Ejiofor would share the heroics with Cusack, portraying an idealistic science adviser to the president.

Emmerich is directing the film from a script co-written with his “10,000 BC” co-writer Harald Kloser.

“2012” looks like another piece in Emmerich’s collection of big-budget disaster flicks, such as “Independence Day,” which made a star out of Will Smith and shocked the box office with huge revenue, and “Godzilla,” which starred Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno but failed at the box office.

“10,000 BC,” released in early March, grossed $35.8 million in the United States and Canada in its first weekend, ranking No. 1 at the box office.

The Hollywood Reporter adds “2012” was initially shopped around with a $200 million budget that Columbia now says will be reduced. The studio plans to begin filming in July, unless an actors’ strike erupts.

Cusack last appeared on the big screen in “Grace Is Gone,” a drama that received the Audience Award for Drama at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival but failed at the box office.

Friday, May 24, he returns to theaters with the indie comedy “War, Inc.,” which he wrote and produced. Cusack costars alongside Hilary Duff. The cast includes Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack and Ben Kingsley.