mayan prophecy

Take THAT Roland Emmerich! The problem with these end-of-the-world movies, like 2012, is that when they come out people sometimes freak because they actually believe the world is coming to an end. The marketing strategy for the upcoming Roland Emmerich film doesn't help either, since it seems the studio wants people to believe the 2012 Mayan prophecy -- so much so that they've gone and created a whole slew of fake websites and Facebook pages tied to the film and tied to the Mayan legend. Of course, this sort of fluff may help the film's box office take when it hits theaters, but it certainly doesn't help the folks at NASA who've been fielding thousands of emails from people who, thanks to the movie and its marketing plan, think the world is ending in 2012.

Says NASA scientist David Morrison, "I don't have anything against the movie. It's the way it's been marketed and the way it exploits people's fears." To dispute some of these claims, Morrison has taken to a new online column where he's been answering questions about 2012 and the mysterious planet Nibiru.

So what does he really think about the Mayan calendar ending on that specific date in 2012? In his column, Morrison says: "Calendars exist for keeping track of the passage of time, not for predicting the future. The Mayan astronomers were clever, and they developed a very complex calendar. Ancient calendars are interesting to historians, but they cannot match the ability we have today to keep track of time, or the precision of the calendars currently in use. The main point, however, is that calendars, whether contemporary or ancient, cannot predict the future of our planet or warn of things to happen on a specific date such as 2012. I note that my desk calendar ends much sooner, on December 31 2009, but I do not interpret this as a prediction of Armageddon. It is just the beginning of a new year."

Our good pal (and Cinematical writer) Kevin Kelly just passed along the hot-off-the-presses news that Bryan Singer will executive produce a new 2012-related TV show for the SyFy network. The untitled show will be a 6-hour limited series to be written by Michael Petroni (Chronicles of Narnia: The Dawn Treader, Masters of Science Fiction: The Awakening, Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys) and Michael Bond (Passengers) -- and it will follow a down-on-his-luck author/professor who goes on a National Treasure-like worldwide adventure trying to "uncover the mysteries surrounding the Mayan Calendar and the potential apocalypse it seems to have predicted centuries ago." It's sort of like The Da Vinci Code meets National Treasure meets 2012.

Singer exec produced the channel's 2005 miniseries The Triangle (which I did not watch), and with 2012 coming out this year in theaters and with the actual year approaching, now seems like the right time to exploit the ancient Mayan prophecy for all it's worth. On the show itself, Singer says, "I have always been fascinated by the various myths and conspiracy theories surrounding the Mayan Calendar. It's the most accurate calendar created by man, so accurate that many believe its origins may lie elsewhere. Regardless of what you believe, what is truly mysterious about this, is that a number of cultures and religions, including Hinduism, all point toward a period of great upheaval which happens to coincide with the final month and year marked by the calendar. Our story will explore whether we are truly alone in the universe, and other related mysteries, all of which are set against the backdrop of an incredibly exciting and fast-paced adventure."

Check out the full press release after the jump.