Movies and film have gone gaga for the end-of-the-world trope. If this thing doesn't happen in 2012 as the Mayans predicted, the entertainment industry is going to be practically disappointed. The hottest movie and TV franchises -- think Twilight (oh, Edward!) -- feed our obsessions with death. 2011, with releases like Melancholia, Super 8, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, was yet another big year for the apocalypse and alien invasion movie trend that has been building for five years. This includes I Am Legend, 28 Days Later, Cloverfield, War of the Worlds, Children of Men, The Book of Eli, The Road, and of course, 2012. On television, we're watching shows like Falling Skies (alien attack), The Walking Dead (zombies), True Blood (vampires), and The Vampire Diaries (self-explanatory). All we want to see is the end of the world. Even business flicks know it: this year's two biggest, Too Big to Fail and Margin Call, were also, in a sense, movies about the end of the (financial) world.
