Earthquakes, volcanos, floods and even asteroids. Each one has been the focal point or even the villain, if you will of many successful disaster movies. Dante's Peak, Volcano, The Day After Tomorrow, Armageddon and Deep Impact each had been a spectacle bigger than the next.

The only way to top the kind of destruction seen in those movies would be the end of the world itself. Something explored almost gleefully in the movie 2012.

WASHINGTON: The world is not coming to an end on Dec 21, 2012, the US space agency insisted yesterday in a rare campaign to dispel widespread rumours fuelled by the Internet and a new Hollywood movie.

The latest big screen offering from Sony Picture, 2012, arrives in theatres on Friday, with a US$200 million (RM700 mil) production about the end of the world supposedly based on myths backed by the Mayan calendar.

The doomsday scenario  revolves around claims that the end of time will come as an obscure Planet X — or Nibiru — heads toward or collides with Earth.