It’s leaving Netflix soon: 16 years ago, this disastrous movie caused panic among viewers

What if the end of the world was in 2012? If today we laugh at this prophecy, which was raging in the early 2000s, then it was a completely different topic. Because according to the Mayan calendar, December 21, 2012 was supposed to mark the end of the cycle and therefore of the Earth.

Several researchers have studied the phenomena that were predicted and expected to hit the planet. Thus, they commented on several possible terrestrial modifications: cataclysmic changes, reversal of magnetic poles, unusual solar activity, climatic upheaval and ecological crisis…

If all this did not happen in the end, the Maya prophecy turned out to be the perfect subject of fiction, which Hollywood took up. In 2009, Roland Emmerich – a genre specialist to whom we are particularly indebted for Independence Day and the Day After – directed the film in 2012. And if it didn’t go down in the annals—despite its particularly successful special effects—the marketing campaign that accompanied the film’s release sparked a lot of conversation.

Disaster in and out of cinema

Columbia Pictures didn’t do things by halves in its 2012 promotion, playing on people’s real fears to convince them to come to theaters — and it worked, the movie was a hit. In the first American-language trailer, in which we see a tsunami engulfing the Himalayas, viewers are invited to search the Internet for the truth about this prophecy.

At the same time, studios were launched “fake” siteThe Institute for Human Continuity, where anyone could find advice on how to best prepare for the upheavals that were about to hit Earth in December 2012.

It also states that scientists have confirmed 94% that the prophecy was real. While some understood that it was just a “joke”, others were truly panicked when they discovered the story of the Mayan calendar. And the film’s release in theaters continued that paranoia.

Before prompting NASA to intervene. The American agency began to receive a lot of e-mails from concerned people: “The agency receives so many questions from people who are afraid of the end of the world in 2012 that we had to create a site specifically dedicated to dispelling this myth. This is an unprecedented decision,” said Donald Yeomans, a NASA solar system dynamics specialist at the time.

Fortunately, this story was quickly settled and humanity survived in 2012. Since then, the Roland Emmerich feature film has been hailed by NASA as “the dumbest science fiction film ever conceived”. And it’s very powerful.

2012 leaves Netflix on January 17th.