Posted 06.09.11 by Mandy Yesterday the release date for The Lone Ranger was announced: December 21, 2012, a date that happens to coincide with the winter solstice (the earth's equator aligning with the Milky Way) and the end of the Mayan 5,139-year Long Count calendar.
The Mayan calendar has not only been informational to archaeologists, it has also been a design inspiration for wall clocks, jewelry, and even paper basket-liners at some restaurants. Many people believe that this calendar is even more significant, saying that it predicts the day the world will end, with some thinking that the Mayans had insider information about an alien attack (they did know about astronauts after all), and others believing that it will be apocalypse by seismic and meteorological events or a mysterious planet on the outer-reaches of the solar system flinging itself at the earth.
Apparently Jerry Bruckheimer and the folks at Disney don't think the apocalypse is going to happen December 21, 2012, because if they did, it's a pretty safe assumption that they would release the movie a week or two earlier. Maybe December 21, 2012 is just another day, and if they Mayan civilization were still around, they'd have another calendar up and ready to go by that time. Or maybe Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer are two of the horsemen of the apocalypse. What do you think?