By Steven Zeitchik

How — apart from the possibility that Roland Emmerich has secretly hypnotized us with an ancient Teutonic curse — can one explain the runaway success of the by-the-numbers snooze that is “2012″?

The of-quoted explanation for any disaster hit is Zeitgeist-ian, which in this case would mean that in the era of foreclosures, global warming and general end-of-the-world jitters, moviegoers see in the filmic apocalypse a mirror of their own fears. It’s a tempting theory — you know, catharsis, vicariousness, other things college-students write term papers about.

But does it hold up? Looking at the biggest apocalyptic blockbusters of the past couple decades, there’s some correlation between the state of the world and the stock of Roland Emmerich. But it’s hardly neat or simple.

Sure, one of Emmerich’s other big hits, the environmental disaster tale “The Day After Tomorrow,” earned a whopping $186m basically 2 1/2 years after 9/11, and as fears of global warming were beginning to take hold.