But while the End of the World metaphor may seem a garden path festooned with posies and daffodils, a few yards down and the trail suddenly becomes a headline writer's inferno, a fiery pit of inexact analogy from which no media employee can hope to emerge unsinged.

The problem is that an apocalypse metaphor suggests something terrible has happened, while 2012's $225 million worldwide grosses suggest something incredible has happened. (Actually, of course, if you are a fan of actual living entertainment, the apocalypse is a very apt metaphor for 2012's success, but that's not the tale box-office round-up headline writers have to tell.)

So across the nation this weekend, our brave headline corps searched for the right way to draw on the end of the world metaphor to explain that 2012 did really well.

Variety walked right into the trap with "2012 destroys worldwide box office." 2012 destroyed world box office in the sense of it put a lot of money in them, and although "destroy" may be contemporary lingo for "won at" even that usage suggests an opposition as though it were 2012 vs. the box office...which takes you down a whole other rabbit hole. The Huffington Post followed Variety off this cliff (or perhaps it was the other way around) reaching for the box-office destroying imagery.

Both the Hollywood Reporter and the LA Times tried to come at the problem sideways by going with variations on "2012 explodes at boxoffice." This variation however, while more on the nose in terms of what the films grosses did, attempts to sidestep the apocalypse metaphor, not getting at all at the fact that the film is not just about someone placing a sparkler in a mailbox, but about the whole world collapsing, and if you want to get technical about it, the world doesn't actually explode in the film it more..crumbles.

Taking a second stab at it, in a second box office story, however, the LA Times proved the power of the do-over and pretty much managed to get both the metaphor and the enormity pretty much on the nose with: 2012 spells doom for its competition at the box office."

The Associated Press got the epic scale right but in doing so really walked away from the entire end of the world theme and got pretty clunky in the process coming up with: 2012 has worldwide box-office bang of $225M.

The Wrap played with the theme while avoiding the metaphor with "Master of Disaster: $225M Worldwide for 2012."

The New York Times showed either wisdom or incredible cowardice and walked away from the metaphor entirely, hitting us instead with the heart-stopping lush imagery of "2012 Opening Earns $65 Million." And we can't imagine the Wall Street Journal's headline is an example of the sort of gumption Rupert Murdoch was hoping to inject into the place when he bought it up: "Disaster Film 2012 Opens Atop Box Office."

Our congratulations go out to all those who made the effort to work with this slippery analogy. To use another one, in headline writing as in life, as in football or baseball, sort of but not exactly, you only lose by not playing.

• With fans already camped out awaiting its Friday opening, New Moon, the latest installment in the Twilight cycle, has already broken its first record, becoming the all-time leader in advance ticket sales, according the Fandango's rankings. The ticket seller reports that a full 86 percent of its sales over the past week were for New Moon. The US government has advised all citizens to prepare a safe room in their homes that will be kept free of all media, warning the incoming vampire tsunami over the next week will overrun every available crevice of television, newspapers, magazines, internet and human speech, flooding the populace with a deluge Twilight propaganda. [Deadline]

• Use whatever big bang metaphor you like, 2012 did that at the box office this weekend, hauling in $225 million worldwide. Precious also impressed on a much smaller scale, taking the number four slot with $6.1 million while running on only 174 screens. The weekend also gave some hope to Disney's promise that A Christmas Carol would prove to have legs through the holiday season despite its tepid opening. Carol dropped off a mere 26 percent from its opening weekend. [Variety]

• The Academy of Motion Pics met in a low-key, old fashioned, just-among-friends ceremony to give out its special awards off-camera this year. Special Oscars were handed to Lauren Bacall, cinematographer Gordon Willis and producers Roger Corman and John Calley. The evening was full of low-key speeches and tableside toasts to the honorees. Warren Beatty heralded the wonder of attending an Oscar event where "Nobody's worried whether 36.9 million people are watching us, or 29.2 million." The off-camera nature of the event apparently inspired the stars to their most-long winded heights. Time it took to hand out four awards: three and a half hours. [NY Times]

• Variety chronicles the keeping the trains running resigned mood at MGM as the company waits to be auctioned off and wonders whether it will continue to be a standalone studio. While the wait goes on, development work continues on The Hobbit, James Bond 23 and a Poltergeist reboot. Audiences will rejoice at the news that the studio is guaranteeing it will release the already completed Red Dawn, Hot Tub Time Machine and a 3D retelling of Cabin in the Woods. [Variety]

• Mediaweek reports on "Growing Pains at Hulu." The portal is apparently demonstrating why joint ventures in show biz are fraught propositions as conflicts have been springing up between the ABC, NBC and Fox staffs whose companies co-founed the site. [MediaWeek]

We are some fucked up people, yo.

I mean, believe me, I totally see the appeal in the universe breaking LA off the coast and hiding it 4,000 feet under the sea, like the afikomen of God that will never be cashed in and found, because—sorry, LA—it's LA. Though apparently some people got teary during the part when the Kogi Truck gets swallowed up by an acid-spewing mutant volcano, so I guess it's a complicated emotion. But why are we so desperate to see what the end looks like? Because we're sadists? Masochists? Because we'd like to imagine a world in which only we exist and everything else just doesn't? [Related: Welcome to Lower Manhattan.] Because we want it all to just be totally fucked and end, and we want a hand in it, like that kid who spends five hours building a beautiful sand castle only to "Godzilla" it out of existence for six seconds?

Or because it looks sick? Which apparently, it did. To the tune of $225M.

The 162-minute disaster epic...blew away the competition and took in $65 million in North America in its opening weekend and $160 million worldwide. All totaled, the Roland Emmerich movie, which cost $200 million to make (and tens of millions more to market) grossed $225 million.

That's gotta be it. When the world ends, it's not like we're going to be able to watch it being so awesome. Also, we're all gonna die and it's gonna be crazy but, like, will it really look that cool? Hell to the no, BobbyBrown! It'll probably look like The Road or something. Gray and stupid and dusty and boring. But that's life, you know? Less Roland Emmerich, more Cormac McCarthy. Besides, only in Fakeland can anybody give a shit about Amanda Peet living through the end of the world. OH COME ON.

And then there's this Precious movie. The critics HATED it. Like this one:

Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious. Full of brazenly racist clichés (Precious steals and eats an entire bucket of fried chicken), it is a sociological horror show.

Ha, oh, just joking, that's batshit Armond White from the New York Press. This guy eats the innocence of children for breakfast and snacks on Labrador puppies for lunch. Also, he hated Up. But! Precious, which is a "the world sucks" movie of a different stripe, did well, too. Look:

The indie movie "Precious," which Lionsgate bought at Sundance, took in about $6.1 million in just 174 theaters in nine cities. That's an impressive $35,000 per-screen average.

Now, granted: 2012 was on about 40 bazillion more screens, but seriously, compared to the other top per-theater take ($19,095 for 2012), it's a pretty incredible number, and a 200% increase from last week's Precious take. That 200% number is not a joke.

Lesson, learned. It goes something like this: when I make my autobiographical epic, I Hope They Smoke Adderall In Hogwarts, I'm going to make sure to append the words "Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey Present." If only real-Hollywood were so smart. Dumbasses. Imagine if they did that to 2012. They would've made enough money to destroy the world for reals. Until then, we have LA's fake-comeuppance to go see again and again and again. Basically, yes:

[Photo of The Great Alderaan Explosion of '77: "Complicated Feelings," Mixed Media, provided by the artist.]

2012
The Story: As per Mayan predictions, the world ends a few years from now and John Cusack leads a band of survivors who try to figure out just what to do with that. From veteran world-destroying director Roland Emmerich.
The Pitch: Independence Day meets An Inconvenient Truth
Who It's For: People who's need to see stuff get exploded is so strong they are willing to put up with having a bit a little left-wing messaging in the process (e.g. The White House gets destroyed by one of its own aircraft carriers, get it?)
Cause for Hope: The city destroying effects seem to have risen to the challenging; this won't be your grandfather's apocalypse.
Cause for Concern: The dialogue might not be bad enough to be funny, might level out at merely bad.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 5

THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX
The Story: A fox (voiced by George Clooney) turned away from a life of crime to respectability yearns for the thrill of the chase.
The Pitch: Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer meets The Darjeeling Limited
Who It's For: Hoodie Nation
Cause for Hope: Extremely lively fun-to-look at stop motion animation; the non-reality of the medium reduces the perpetual Wes Anderson problem of every character existing in its own self-contained emotional Universe where they can preen for the camera.
Cause for Concern: Despite being little statuettes of animals, every character in the film still manages to come off as a smug, self-absorbed Wes Anderson character; Jarvis Crocker makes perhaps the most irritating cameo in recent cinema in a pure pander to the Hoodie base.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

PIRATE RADIO
The Story: When rock and roll is outlawed on the British airwaves in the 1960's a group of renegade DJ's (led by Philip Seymour Hoffman) set sail and broadcast from a floating station.
The Pitch: Pump Up The Volume meets Almost Famous
Who It's For: Aging rockers, and aging rockers-to-be.
Cause for Hope: Immensely watchable cast led by Hoffman, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh
Cause for Concern: Creaky familiar story of bad boys standing up to the uptight morality police.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

THE MESSENGER
The Story: The life of an army officer (Ben Foster) responsible notifying war deads' next of kin becomes complicated when he becomes romantically involved with a fallen soldier's widow.
The Pitch: The Hurt Locker meets The Great Santini
Who It's For: Serious drama with contemporary issues fans.
Cause for Hope: Strong festival buzz, intense looking performance by Woody Harrelson in army uniform; Samantha Morton always impresses.
Cause for Concern: Heavy downer of a subject in these downer times.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 7

DARE
The Story: Three high school seniors (Emmy Rossum, Zach Gilford, Ashley Springer) on the cusp of diving into the world get involved in a complicated relationship.
The Pitch: Cruel Intentions meets Reckless
Who It's For: People who like very serious looks at high school kids sex lives.
Cause for Hope: Looks more thoughtful and interesting than typical high school film; happy return to the screen of Sandra Bernhard.
Cause for Concern: Seems to lean heavily on the shock value of threesomes and bisexuality.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

WOMEN IN TROUBLE
The Story: Ten wacky urban women make a mess of their personal lives.
The Pitch: Sex and the City meets Wedding Crashers
Who It's For: Girls night out, preferably post a few dozen mojitos.
Cause for Hope: Men get plenty of annoying, immature, shoddily built buddy comedies so why shouldn't women.
Cause for Concern: It would take an extreme level of commitment to the principle of female bonding not to find this ensemble deeply annoying.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 3

• The Wrap writes of the challenges facing AMC in following up on the success of its two original shows, Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Since the pair of critical darlings launched, the network's development team has changed and this weekend's debut of The Prisoner marks the first try-out for the new execs, with two new series coming up behind it. While the kiniptions Mad Men provokes in the media have always been hugely disproportionate to its raw audience size, which is generally in the one to two million range, Men's success is due to a little fluke of its audience demographics. The Wrap notes that more than half of its viewers earn six figure incomes, making it pretty much the official show of American rich people. But while Men and Breaking are bringing in cash for the network, the piece notes that between them they can only produce 26 episodes a year, a long, long way from the sort of programming pipeline needed to take the network to the next level, revenue-wise. And what with the economic downturn, America's rich have a lot more time to dedicate to their Tivo's and their needs must be fed. [The Wrap]

• Fox has re-signed Emma Watts to serve as its President of Production for the next three years, a move which Variety says, "keeps Fox as a bastion of stability at a time when studios are rife with executive shakeups." [Variety]

• Charlie's Angels may be coming home to the little screen. ABC is reportedly on the brink of a deal to bring the story of three little girls who went to the police academy back full circle to where it all began for them. Josh Friedman, who wrote Fox's Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles is on board to executive produce the show. And now they work for him. [Variety]

• American box offices are bracing this weekend for a medium to large-sized tsunami of cash unleashed by the release of 2012. The disaster epic is expected to take in between $50 - $55 million this weekend with no other major film entering wide release against it. The film enters the marketplace with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 38 which The Wrap points out is an improvement over the 9 percent positive rating of director Roland Emmerich's previous film 10,000 B.C. [The Wrap]

• The Vice-Chairman of Lions Gate said that his company would be interested in buying MGM but "It's all about price," that is, if they can get the James Bond franchise for very little money, sure they'd be happy to do that. While trumpeting the news the LA Times makes the "imagine that/you don't say" point that, every company in Hollywood would be willing to absorb MGM and Bond if they can get them for nothing or next to it. [LA Times]

• The Who have been booked to entertain tens of millions of drunken, nacho-engorged football fans when they play the halftime show of this season's Superbowl. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Despite SAG's rejection of proposed terms, AFTRA's membership ratified a new contract with video game makers, taking a 2.5 percent pay raise for its actors. [Hollywood Reporter]

“There are some things that happen in Los Angeles, crazy stuff,” Amanda Peet told MTV News of her favorite scenes from 2012.

“[My character and John Cusack’s character] see it from a plane. We get off the ground and we escape in an airplane and some of the stuff that [Roland] shows us is incredible and really frightening.”

Really? Like what?? Unfortunately, everything beyond that is kept extremely vague—forcing our imaginations to run wild as we picture the short-circuiting of a Stoli Blueberry-dispensing volcano at a local twinks-only gay pride event. Only Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Cusack) and his agent (Peet) survive by piloting Bryan Singer's private WeHo-to-Mulholland air shuttle to higher ground, as the jets of molten, flavor-infused cocktail beneath them incinerate everything in their path.

• Amanda Peet Warns Los Angeles Better Be Ready For ‘2012’ [MTV Movies Blog]

1. Emmerich's campy, well-fortified London townhouse? Saved.

2. Tibet? Gone.

3. Killer-tidal wave CGI technology has not advanced especially far in the five years since Day After Tomorrow.

4. Emmerich is returning to the political satire at which he acquitted himself so expertly before stumbling over historical comedy with 10,000 B.C.

5. If you look really, really close, we think you can spot Cusack boogieboarding into the doomed monastery.

BONUS: If you're especially determined to get something out of this, amuse yourself and your coworkers by reading the intertitles in your best Don LaFontaine voice. It's fun!

• '2012' [Moviefone]

We have other questions as well — including an open Defamer inquiry into the identity of an unusually sexy bedside photo subject. Help us figure it out after the jump.

Upon closer inspection, and in keeping with the home's general theme of despot-chic, we are all but certain that the mystery man pictured in Emmerich's guest room is none other than Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But we've never seen him looking so... hot. We're open to other suggestions (one immediate suggestion around HQ was Bronson Pinchot, which, frankly, we'd prefer) and decor commentary as well. We don't even know if 2012 could squander the Emmerich goodwill we're feeling right now.

[Photos: NYT]

• A London Home to Shock the Neighbors [NYT]

John Cusack is in negotiations to star in director Roland Emmerich's (10,000 B.C., The Day After Tomorrow) new disaster movie 2012 for Sony Pictures. The title refers to the year the world is supposed to end after a global cataclysm. Cusack is negotiating to play Jackson Curtis, a divorced dad who alternates between writing and driving a limo. ...

Sony acquired the project in a high-stakes bidding war and is aiming for a summer 2009 release. The price tag for the special-effects laden movie could reach $200 million.

The Hollywood Reporter has stepped in over the last hour to specify a July 10, 2009, release date and to talk down the budget below $200 million — a staggering number under any circumstances, but most certainly for a film featuring John Cusack as a divorced limo driver. By the director of 10,000 BC. Alas, we'll miss this one anyway because this is the part of the post where we shoot ourselves.

[Photo Credit: Wireimage]

• John Cusack in talks for Roland Emmerich's '2012' [EW]

• John Cusack ponders disaster flick [THR]

· A coup for actors with gigantic eyes: Anime classic Akira gets the big-screen treatment, co-produced by Lionard DiCaprio's production company for Warner Bros. [Variety]
· David Fincher has chosen his next subject to preen over obsessively until just right, then probably get shut out of the Oscars with: Black Hole, the brilliant Charles Burns's graphic novel about a mutating STD spread among teens. This is going to be great. [Variety]
· CBS greenlights two reality show pilots: Splitsville is a "game show for divorcing couples who battle it out for their belongings in a series of competitive challenges," and another, as-yet-untitled project from the makers of Kid Nation, in which cops "help people who have been victims of a crime." [THR]