Emily: A Clueless Look at the Apocalypse

Emily: A Clueless Look at the Apocalypse (also known as Emily and the Apocalypse, or simply Justice for Love: New York) is an American graphic novel adaptation of Chris Sparling's scrapped script for Paramount Pictures' Justice for Love, starring Alicia Silverstone and Rachel BlanchardBlanchard was only considered for the role when the film was scrapped..
It is loosely based on both the Justice for Love duology by Toho, and Amy Heckerling's Clueless (which itself was based on the 1815 novel Emma by Jane Austen), with the setting changed to present day New York City. In the story, a renowned celebrity undergoes a spiritual makeover by using her social status to aid others, including helping a depressed woman reunite with her mother, while an asteroid threatens to impact Earth.
The graphic novel is published by Legendary Comics on July 19, 2025, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Clueless film, and serves as an official tie-in for Legendary Pictures' Justice for the End of the World.
== Description ==
== Plot ==
Emily is a stylish, good-natured, and popular celebrity living in Manhattan, New York City with her husband Michael, a film producer. Her sister, Jessica, left New York to become an aspiring actress in Los Angeles, and is now living in her own life in Beverly Hills. Their mother died while giving birth to Emily; as a result, Emily's only living relative is her own sister.
Emily's privileged life takes a negative turn when a joint deflection mission by the United States and Russia to stop a recently discovered asteroidIn the original film and the revised version, the asteroid is named Clara, after the astronomer who discovered it, Clara Young. In the original Emily and the Apocalypse screenplay, the asteroid's name is not mentioned anywhere. is announced in failure on an emergency broadcast, and the asteroid is projected to impact somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. This severely affects her popularity status, as more people are concerned with the imminent end of the world.
Emily and Michael decide to spend their remaining time at their vacation home somewhere in Maine, but after arriving at the Grand Central Terminal, Michael confesses to Emily that he's having an affair with his mistress in the past few years, and decides to finally abandon their marriage as he boards the final train to Philadelphia.
Around the world, society quickly breaks down after the imminent catastrophe was announced, but in the following weeks, the global chaos has since largely died down, with only sporadic murders, robberies, and incidents of vandalism as humanity finally accepts their inevitable demise. In New York City, the streets are all deserted, and stores have been looted.
Left alone and feeling "totally clueless", Emily contacts her sister and asks if she could come to New York to spend their remaining time together, but discovers that basic communication services such as internet are now unavailable due to the catastrophe. While attempting to visit a friend, Emily encounters a lone man looking for a cab, as public transportation have been suspended as well.
In the midst of the catastrophe, some people are actually left stranded and could not reach their intended destinations due to the lack of public transport and the roads been deserted. Emily decides to help the man reach his destination in Brooklyn, and she realises that she enjoys doing good deeds. She then continues driving stranded people to their destinations around New York City.
One day, Emily meets a depressed woman named Sarah, who is a big fan of Emily, and proceeds to befriend her. Sarah reveals that she's actually from Boston, and is attempting to reunite with her mother in Atlanta. With nowhere else to go in New York, Sarah asks if she could stay in Emily's apartment for the time being, which she accepts.
In the meantime, Sarah spends time with Emily as they enjoy travelling around the city's most prominent landmarks, eventually ending at the Empire State Building, the "heart" of the Big Apple. While at the building's observation deck, Emily reveals to Sarah that the place reminds her of Alex, her first love interest.
She last met him at the building's 86th floor observatory back in 1998, and since then, she never saw him again afterwards. Emily kept returning to the Empire State Building every year, in the hopes of meeting Alex again in person and confessing her true feelings to him, hopefully before the world ends.
Upon arriving in Atlanta, Sarah is informed that her mother's health condition is continuing to worsen, and tells Emily regarding the situation. Sarah and her mother reunite with each other again in a hospital. Sarah appreciates Emily for deciding to help her. Before leaving, Emily gives Sarah a photo album containing their happy moments together.
The asteroid finally impacts Earth, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii. The impact initially triggers a megatsunami that destroys cities and countries along the Pacific Rim, including Tokyo and Los Angeles. Then, large amounts of pulverized rock dust and other debris are ejected into the atmosphere, causing temperatures to slowly increase and turning the Earth's sky into orange.
Realizing the end is now only moments away, Emily returns to the Empire State Building for the last time, and proceeds to write a letter confessing her true feelings to Alex, and leaves it at the building's observation deck, along with a photo of him that Emily captured several years ago. In a surprise, Jessica suddenly arrives and reunites with Emily.
Emily and her sister hold on to each other as they finally embrace for their deaths, as the asteroid impact also triggered a firestorm that quickly approaches the city. They are vaporized instantly as the firestorm engulfs them, while the rest of New York City is obliterated by the firestorm, including Grand Central Terminal, Times Square, and the Empire State Building.
The firestorm continues engulfing the rest of the planet, signifying the end of the world.
== Characters ==
* Emily
:The lead protagonist and narrator. A famous celebrity, she is described by Sparling as a "middle-aged version of Cher Horowitz; a sweet but spoiled girl that believes the world only revolves around her". When her popularity status is affected by the asteroid catastrophe and her husband abandoning their marriage, she undergoes a spiritual makeover; she began using her social status to aid others. Heckerling approached Alicia Silverstone to portray the character.
* Jessica
:Emily's older sister. Sometime before the events in the story, she left New York to become an aspiring actress in Los Angeles, just like Emily, and is now living in her own life in Beverly Hills, California. Her appearance is nearly identical to Emily; as a result, Rachel Blanchard was considered for the role, as she previously replaced Silverstone to portray the Cher character in the 1996 Clueless television series. However, she was already cast in The Summer I Turned Pretty for the role of Susannah.
* Sarah
:A depressed woman from Boston. She is one of Emily's fans, and is attempting to reunite with her mother in Atlanta. Her character is directly based from Alicia Salvacion in the original film, as according to Sparling, the Alicia character is basically "what Justice for Love is all about".
* Alex
:Emily's first love interest. Last seen by Emily at the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building back in 1998. Hoping to meet him again in person and confessing her true feelings to him before it is too late, Emily kept returning to the Empire State Building every year.
* Michael
:Emily's husband, a film producer in New York. He abandons her and their marriage while at the Grand Central Terminal to spend the remaining time with his mistress in Philadelphia.
== Staff ==
* Written by Amy Heckerling, Chris Sparling
* Illustrated by Drew Edward Johnson
* Cover by Arthur Adams
* Colors by Allan Passalaqua
* Lettering and Design by John Roshell, Sarah Jacobs
* Edits by Robert Napton
* Special thanks to Amy Heckerling, Chris Sparling
== Differences from the film ==
Almost all the major elements of its plot from the film can be seen in the graphic novel, with the exception of the asteroid impact scene. Additional scenes depicting worldwide chaos and the collapse of society were also added.
While writing the screenplay at Paramount, screenwriter Chris Sparling was instructed by director Amy Heckerling to remove any disaster scenes as much as possible, as she envisioned the film as a comedy drama rather than a disaster film. Only the firestorm scene was kept, to please the fans that wanted to see disaster scenes, and as a way to visualize the apocalypse.
* In the original screenplay, the asteroid is clearly mentioned to impact somewhere in western Europe, but its actual impact is never shown. This was intended to maintain continuity with #JusticeForLove: End of the World. In that film, the Clara asteroid impacted central France, just east of Paris. However, in the graphic novel, the asteroid's impact site is changed to the Pacific Ocean, which triggers a megatsunami that destroys Tokyo and Los Angeles, creating a notable inconsistency in the story.
* Scenes featuring the collapse of society and global chaos immediately after the emergency broadcast were added into the graphic novel. In the original screenplay, the scenes were removed as Heckerling did not view that as "necessary" from the perspective of the story.
* The additional asteroid fragments that result in the destruction of Tokyo, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as clearly shown in #JusticeForLove: End of the World were all removed, again due to Heckerling's different vision for the film.
== Comparison to the source materials ==
The graphic novel and the original screenplay appears to be a loose adaptation of both the Justice for Love duology by Toho & GMA Pictures, and Clueless by Amy Heckerling (which itself was based on the 1815 novel Emma by Jane Austen). Most of the main characters have counterparts in both source materials.
* Emily/Cher Horowitz/Mylene Concepcion: Emily is the representative of the lead characters Mylene Concepcion from #JusticeForLove: End of the World and Cher Horowitz in Clueless; both Cher and Emily enjoy the satisfaction of helping others, while it was Mylene who decided to help Alicia recover from her depression in the original Justice for Love film. A similar scenario occurs to Emily during the story, as she meets a depressed woman as well, and decides to help her reunite with her mother in Atlanta.
* Sarah/Tai Frasier/Alicia Salvacion: Described as the complete opposite of Emily, Sarah is a "combination" of the characters Tai Frasier and Alicia Salvacion. Emily decides to help Sarah just like how Mylene and Alicia became friends and Cher helping Tai. However, instead of a physical makeover like in Clueless, Emily entertains Sarah by travelling around New York City to get rid of her depression.
* Jessica/Andrea Concepcion: The sibling of the protagonists Emily and Mylene, that decided to leave the main character for her own personal life; Andrea leaves Mylene to start her own company in San Francisco, while Jessica leaves Emily to become an actress in Los Angeles. In Clueless, Cher does not have a sister, but in the original Emma novel, Emma Woodhouse does have a sister, Isabella Knightley.
== Development ==
Following the phenomenal success of the original film, Paramount Pictures became interested in doing an American remake of the film, with a big budget and A-list actors. This would also be a great next step to follow up on the success of Don't Look Up, which Paramount originally planned to release theatrically, before its rights were acquired by Netflix.
Paramount initially hired Clueless director Amy Heckerling as the film's director, and hired Greenland writer Chris Sparling to write the film's screenplay. Heckerling admitted her avoidance towards depressing movies, and envisioned the film instead as a comedy drama.
To maintain authenticity and continuity, they intended to closely follow the original film, albeit changing the setting to New York City, while keeping the general plot and characters of the original. It was decided from the outset that the film will feature its own characters, without bringing any from the original entries, although Clara Young was suggested for a short cameo.
Under the title Emily and the Apocalypse, Sparling submitted his first completed draft to the executives at Paramount. The studio executives were dissatisfied with the screenplay, as it deviated "too much" from the original film, and requested the screenplay to be rewritten from scratch. Heckerling could not come to an agreement with the studio executives, and later left the project.
However, Paramount would soon learn that Toho signed a deal with Legendary Pictures and TSG Entertainment to produce their own remake of the film. Paramount proceeded to sue both Toho and Legendary for the rights to the Justice for Love duology, claiming that they had a written contract to produce their own remake; however, Toho denied such a deal.
Eventually, a federal judge ruled that Legendary did in fact have the rights to produce a remake of #JusticeForLove: End of the World. This forced Paramount to abandon its plans for the film. During pre-production for Justice for the End of the World, Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier discarded the screenplay, but Legendary Comics later picked it up and adapted it into a graphic novel.
== Reception ==
Compared to Justice for the End of the World, which received mostly mixed to negative reviews, the graphic novel has received generally positive reviews for its respect towards the source materials. Critics described it as a "brilliant and hilarious reshaping of Toho's Justice for Love", while others likened it towards as a "Clueless apocalyptic spin-off". The positive reception received by the novel again showed Amy Heckerling's creativity when comes to adaptations, following the original Clueless film in 1995.
== Trivia ==
* Contrary to popular belief, this is not the first Clueless comic to be published; another comic titled Clueless: One Last Summer was published in 2017. Little information is known about it, however.
** Also, Simon & Schuster published another series of novels based on Clueless that was mainly written by H. B. Gilmour and Randi Reisfeld.
* The final scene is a direct reference to the 2022 short film The Final Moments, depicting the protagonists being vaporized instantly while a major city is obliterated by the firestorm (Manila, New York City).
* Each of the landmarks depicted being destroyed during the firestorm scene has a certain importance in Emily's life:
** Grand Central Terminal is where Emily's husband abandons their marriage.
** Times Square, being the entertainment capital of New York, is Emily's workplace.
** Empire State Building reminds Emily of her first love interest, and is also the place where she dies.
* The amount of similarities in the impending impact event described in the film's screenplay suggest that while the film itself is a remake, it actually takes place in the same continuity as the original film. However, when it was adapted into a graphic novel, the asteroid's impact site was changed from western Europe to the Pacific Ocean, creating a notable inconsistency.
* During the megatsunami scene, various landmarks are used to signify the cities being destroyed; Shibuya Crossing and Tokyo Tower for Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica Pier, and RMS Queen Mary for Los Angeles. The Golden Gate Bridge is simply added to depict San Francisco, as a homage towards the original film.
** The RMS Queen Mary being capsized by the megatsunami is a reference to the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure. In that film, the SS Poseidon is portrayed by RMS Queen Mary, both onboard locations as well as a 25-foot (7.6-meter) long miniature model. Just like in the graphic novel, the ship is capsized due to a tsunami, albeit caused by an underwater earthquake rather than an asteroid impact.
* The firestorm scene at the end of the story is supposed to be a shot-by-shot remake from the original film, even including the same New York City landmarks being destroyed in a similar fashion; Grand Central Terminal/MetLife Building, Times Square, and Empire State Building.
* While Amy Heckerling is credited as one of the writers, she actually did not write anything in either the graphic novel or in the original screenplay. However, she instructed Chris Sparling to remove the disaster scenes.
== Notes ==
Category:Justice for Love duology
Category:Clueless
Category:Graphic Novels
Category:Comics
Category:Crossovers