The king of disaster porn is looking to bring us another high-concept thriller which will spell destruction for Earth. Roland Emmerich is set to direct MOONFALL, which plays out exactly how you'd imagine – the moon is knocked from its orbit by some mysterious force and is on a collision course for Earth. With life as we know it hanging in the balance and just weeks until impact, a ragtag team is launched into a seemingly impossible mission to land on the Moon and save humanity.
Roland Emmerich has begun to cast MOONFALL, and THR has reported that Josh Gad (FROZEN) is the first to join up. The outlet reports that Gad will be playing KC Houseman, who is the "genuis who correctly predicts that the moon has fallen out of its orbit, thus making the space-obsessed, profoundly unfiltered and eccentric man one of the most important people on Earth." The filmmakers describe the character as "odd and unkempt in a way that suggests a high level of intelligence and an equally high level of disorganization." Roland Emmerich wrote the script with Harald Kloser and Spenser Cohen and production on MOONFALL is looking to kick off this fall, but I suppose that all depends on what COVID-19 has to say. Last year, Emmerich said that MOONFALL is something of a mix between 2012 and INDEPENDENCE DAY, and that if you like his other movies, chances are you'll like MOONFALL as well.
If you like my movies, you’ll like this movie. It’s very much like 2012 and Independence Day. It’s a mix of the two, but without an extraterrestrial element. There is a big twist at some point, but I don’t want to give that away now. I had a very clear idea about the tone I wanted on this film. All my movies have humour and don’t take themselves too seriously. Comic relief is important in big films. Look at the original Star Wars. Or all the Marvel movies. You have to have a laugh as well.
Unlike his other movies, Roland Emmerich says that MOONFALL has franchise potential built right in. "I see this movie as having franchise potential," Emmerich said. "I haven’t done that before. On Independence Day, we did another one because the studio asked, and in fact, I have a third part if the studio is interested. I had seen Stargate as a trilogy but that didn’t come together. So all my movies but one have been standalone." How many times can the moon…fall?