Seth Rogen Remains ‘Confounded and Plagued’ by George Lucas’ Belief the World Would End in 2012

Seth Rogen has long maintained that George Lucas actually thought the world would come to an end in 2012. The story goes that Rogen and his writing, directing, and producing partner Evan Goldberg were at a meeting with Steven Spielberg when Lucas showed up unannounced and informed the group about the impending apocalypse. As a recent GQ profile on Rogen explained, Lucas either thought the entire world would come to an end or, “at the very least, that everything west of the San Andreas Fault would soon sink into the ocean.”

As Rogen said in a 2011 interview, “George Lucas sits down and seriously proceeds to talk for around 25 minutes about how he thinks the world is gonna end in the year 2012, for real. He thinks it. He’s going on about the tectonic plates and all the time Spielberg is rolling his eyes, like, ‘My nerdy friend won’t shut up, I’m sorry.'”

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The Lucas story naturally makes its way into Rogen’s new book, a collection of essays titled “Yearbook.” Rogen remembers Goldberg asking Lucas if he really thought the world would end in 2012, to which Lucas allegedly responded, “I know it’s gonna happen…it’s science. And I know science.” Lucas has said that he was joking, thus Rogen admitted to GQ that the “Star Wars” creator “will not be happy” with the upcoming book.

But why does Rogen still believe all these years later that Lucas was serious about the apocalypse? Visiting Conan O’Brien’s podcast this week to promote “Yearbook,” the comedian explained that Lucas’ reaction to a joke gave his sincerity away.

“We [made] a joke like, if you’ve got a spaceship to escape Earth, can we get a seat on that thing?” Rogen said. “And he was like, ‘No.’ It makes me think he wasn’t joking because, if you were joking, you would just say ‘Yes’… But, no, he said, ‘No.’ To this day, I am confounded and plagued by that story.”

Rogen’s “Yearbook” is now available for pre-order and will be released May 11. The actor is currently experiences great success with his production company Point Grey Pictures, the studio behind Amazon’s blockbuster “The Boys” franchise. On the acting front, Rogen is attached to star in Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical new movie opposite Michelle Williams and Paul Dano.

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