You don't need to be a conspiracy theorist here: producers and filmmakers are humans too, they are impacted about constant bashing from media, social media and others than sell/promote fear such as terrorism, global warming, refugees, disasters of all kind. Also social media in our pockets tends to exacerbate the alarmism with every bad event reaching us instantly, and the good ones never really do. Filmmakers, being artists, they tend to express themselves, so they might be some of the first to show this new trend.

Media and especially social media are not a conspiracy either: they want to sell and they are also humans.

A film which does not cause you to feel anything - to manipulate your emotions - has failed. Without that it's just moving wallpaper.

It's very effective too ... every "modern Evangelical prophet" (there theologically should be no such thing) that already believes the end is near more conjure and relate fantastical divinely inspired dreams whose plot twists are lifted from or hugely inspired by fantasy, comic book, and apocalyptic films and TV series. They're hugely entertaining delusions but would be C-grade at best.