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The end is near as Hollywood does the apocalypse

By DAVID GERMAIN | AP Movie Writer • Published November 12, 2009

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LOS ANGELES – It's the end of the world as we know it, and Hollywood feels fine.

Global warming, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, continuing terrorist threats and the economic meltdown have people in a gloomy, even end-of-days frame of mind. Filmmakers are tapping into worries about humanity's future with apocalyptic sagas such as "2012," "The Road" and "The Book of Eli," along with documentaries about environmental or economic doom.

End-of-the-world stories have been a cinema subgenre since the early Cold War days with such nuclear-war movies as "On the Beach," "Fail-Safe" and "Dr. Strangelove." The advent of environmentalism and overpopulation concerns resulted in another wave of films depicting bleak futures, among them "Soylent Green," "Silent Running" and "The Omega Man."

"We always need a boogeyman, we always need the end of the world," said Terry Gilliam, whose films include 1995's "Twelve Monkeys," about a world where plague has wiped out most of humanity. "I think it's the problem of being in a Christian society. It's based on it. If you don't have the end of the world, you don't get heaven and eternity."

On the heels of Al Gore's global-warming alarm "An Inconvenient Truth," doomsday is an especially fertile subject today, and current tales of the apocalypse take many forms:

- Plagues of vampires with Ethan Hawke's upcoming "Daybreakers" and zombies with the horror comedy "Zombieland" and "George Romero's Survival of the Dead."

- Economic calamity with the documentary "Collapse," a portrait of a pessimist convinced industrial civilization is poised to crumble.

- Environmental catastrophe with the part-fiction, part-fact "The Age of Stupid," about a mid-21st century archivist looking back on our times from a world ravaged by global warming.

- Devastating warfare between humans and machines with the sci-fi sequel "Terminator Salvation" and the animated adventure "9."

"The big difference now is it's multiple things," said John Hillcoat, director of "The Road," opening Nov. 25 and starring Viggo Mortensen in an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel about a father and son trekking across a decimated America.