Trivia

The doomsday theory has sprung from a Western idea, not a Mayan. Mayans insist that the world will not end in 2012. The Mayans had a talent for astronomy, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 640.000 years. Once every 640.000 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon. The next time that will happen is on December 21, 2012; which happens to be the same day the Mayan calender expires. In addition to the Mayan calendar, the modern doomsday myth is bolstered several ostensibly scientific reasons for a disaster. Examples include 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, a new ice age, and so on. None of these have 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.

In an interview by USA Today, Roland Emmerich has stated 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."

Some cinemas would start the film at 20:12 (12 minutes past 8), in keeping with the title.

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

Wisconsin is mentioned three times in the film. Executive Producer Michael Wimer (Roland Emmerich's friend and business partner) is from Neenah, Wisconsin.

In the film, many cultural and historic icons are destroyed, including Christ the Redeemer of Rio de Janeiro, and the Vatican. Director Roland Emmerich also wished to depict the destruction of the Kaaba in Mecca. The idea was scrapped however, when producer and co-writer of the film Harald Kloser opposed the idea. He later stated that he made the decision because he did not want a fatwa issued against him by radical Muslims. (Interestingly to note, a fatwa is not an Islamic death sentence, as Kloser thought/stated; it is actually an opinion made by an Islamic leader or scholar concerning Islamic law.)

Charlie Frost's (Woody Harrelson) animation about the end of the world heavily borrows and references the animated Internet meme, "The End of the World", which centers around the idea that we will kill ourselves as a race before any natural disaster would ever have the time to destroy us.

In the scene where Jackson (John Cusack) goes to pick up the Russian oligarch's boys, the mansion he drives up to is the lavish Fleur de Lys estate in the Bel Air / Beverly Hills area, one of the most expensive real estate listings in the country at $125 million.

John Billingsley's character, Professor West, bears both a visual and vocal resemblance to author Graham Hancock, whose book "Fingerprints of the Gods" served as an inspiration for this movie.

During the destruction of the Sistine Chapel, the cracks forming on the roof directly between God and Adam in the Creation of Adam symbolize two aspects related to the Bible: the transition between the first and second circles of life (specifically, breaking the connection between humans and God) and God's reversal of creation of humanity in Chapters 6-9 in the Book of Genesis.

When Adrian arrives at the copper mine near the start of the movie, the car hits a puddle and capsizes a toy boat. This is foreshadowing for the capsizing of the boat on which Adrian's father works.