FILM 1835: 2012

FILM 1835: 2012

TRIVIA: The doomsday theory sprung from a non-Mayan Western idea, not a Mayan one. Mayans insisted that the world would not end in 2012. The Mayans had a talent for astronomy, and enthusiasts found a series of astronomical alignments they said coincided in 2012. Once every six hundred forty thousand 640,000 years, the sun lines up with the center of the Milky Way galaxy on the winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon. The last time that happened was on December 21, 2012, the same day the Mayan calender expired. The modern doomsday myth was bolstered by several ostensibly scientific reasons for a disaster, including a pole shift, the "return" of Planet X or the Sun's sinister counterpart Nemesis, a galactic, planetary, or other celestial alignment, global warming, global cooling, a massive solar flare, or a new ice age. None had any basis in respected science. For example, the "galactic alignment" between the sun, Earth, and galactic center happens every December. The best alignment was reached in the 1990s, and was accompanied by its own set of doomsday theories. Alignments since then have been increasingly poor.

Banned in North Korea, because 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of First Great Leader Kim Il-Sung. Several people were arrested for watching pirated copies of the film.

The great disasters of the "galactic alignment" in 2012 were supposed to have occurred on December 21st, the day of the solstice. The filmmakers decided to move those events up a few months, to midsummer. This relieved them of having to decorate the sets for the winter holidays.

When Jackson (John Cusack) goes to pick up the Russian oligarch's boys, the mansion, to which he drives up, is the Fleur de Lys estate in the Bel Air and Beverly Hills area. At one hundred twenty-five million dollars, it was one of the most expensive real estate listings in the country.

The character Jackson Curtis is the real name of 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) backwards. Executive Producer, co-Writer, and Director Roland Emmerich is a big fan of rapper 50 Cent, and wanted to name his lead character after him.

Charlie Frost's animation about the end of the world heavily references the animated Internet meme, "The End of ze World", which centers around the idea that humanity will kill itself as a whole before any natural disaster would ever have the time to destroy it.

In an interview in USA Today, Roland Emmerich said that this will be his final disaster film, "I said to myself that I'll do one more disaster movie, but it has to end all disaster movies. So I packed everything in." He ended up doing several more, including Independence Day: Resurgence (2016).

Roland Emmerich told MTV the cover-up name for this film was "Farewell Atlantis", which is the title of lead character Jackson Curtis' book.

Seth Rogen turned down the role of Adrian Helmsley.

John Cusack and Amanda Peet appeared in Identity (2003) and Martian Child (2007).

The character of Charlie Frost seems loosely based on David Johnston and Harry Glicken, volcanologists killed in the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Johnston was able to broadcast, "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" as a warning before he died. Glicken was considered so eccentric and disorganized, that he was only ever offered temporary positions by the U.S. Geological Survey, despite his incredibly thorough research on Mount St. Helens.

A television shows an Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike as the Governor of California explaining the situation. The real-life Arnold ended his term in 2011, and the events in this movie took place near the end of 2012.