Roland Emmerich Would Be Up For A Moonfall Sequel If This One Pans Out
Roland Emmerich's "Moonfall" appears to know exactly what it is, and that is a cheesy disaster movie with climate-change overtones in the vein of others that Emmerich has made. The most recent "Moonfall" trailer teased a flick that doesn't take itself too seriously, even as it continues the pattern of Adam McKay's "Don't Look Up" and gives us another film where a scientist makes a "shocking discovery" that the sky is falling.
Actually, scratch that: it's not the sky that's falling here. It's the moon that's falling. In "Moonfall," the moon is out of orbit, and despite the assurances of politicians telling the public, "There's no need to panic," the moon is coming to kill us all.
Assuming there's something still left of the Earth after "Moonfall," though, is it possible we could see a sequel — perhaps titled, "Moonfall 2: Moon's Return?" Well, it all depends on how well the first "Moonfall" does. Speaking to ComicBook.com on the topic of another potential sequel in his filmography, Emmerich said:
"Maybe [Moonfall] is a cool one because then you could continue the story. But, that will happen if the movie is successful enough. Don't forget. The moon falls on Earth, but it's a side story. It's more what's inside the moon."
In answer to the implied question of, "What exactly is inside the moon?" I can only speculate: Roland Emmerich's smiling face, with dollar-sign eyes? Emmerich himself was coy on the subject of the moon's (seemingly extraterrestrial) Tootsie-Roll center, saying: "I'm a big believer in that you don't give away the movie in advertising."
Emmerich's Independence Day: Resurgence Regrets
Emmerich has had a predilection for depicting disaster from above since his earliest film school days in Munich, Germany, when he made a thesis film called "The Noah's Ark Principle" about a space station with weather-control capabilities. We've seen him carry that interest forward into big-budget science fiction and disaster movies like "Independence Day," "The Day After Tomorrow," and "2012," but one thing we've seldom seen Emmerich do is make a sequel.
He made an exception to that for "Independence Day: Resurgence," but he later expressed regret that he had continued making that movie after Will Smith left the project. In 2019, Emmerish told Yahoo Movies UK:
"I should have stopped making ['Resurgence'] because we had a much better script, then I had to, really fast, cobble another script together. I should have just said no because all of a sudden I was making something I criticized myself: a sequel."
In light of these comments, I'm not going to hold my breath for a "Moonfall" sequel, especially since the first movie isn't even out yet. Let's see how this one fares first.
"Moonfall" stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Peña, Donald Sutherland, and more. Here's the official synopsis via Lionsgate:
In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it. With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Academy Award® winner Halle Berry) is convinced she has the key to saving us all – but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson, "Midway") and a conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (John Bradley, "Game of Thrones") believes her. These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find out that our Moon is not what we think it is.
Look for "Moonfall" in theaters on Friday, February 4, 2022.