Roland Emmerich Discovers A New Way To Decimate Our ‘White House’

Roland Emmerich stepped outside of his blockbuster box with 2011’s ‘Anonymous,’ proving to the world he was capable of directing a film where gun-toting characters raced to prevent the end of the world. But this departure appears to have been short-lived, as the ‘Day After Tomorrow’ director plans to run right back to the action-thriller genre.

Deadline reports that Emmerich is in talks to helm ‘White House Down,’ the latest in a growing line of ‘Die Hard in a [blank]’ pitches that seem to be surfacing at major studios. This one comes to us from ‘Zodiac’ screenwriter James Vanderbilt, and is set up at Sony. It will cast a rugged action star as a lone-wolf character who gets caught up in a paramilitary scheme to take over the White House.

Vanderbilt also penned this summer’s ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ for Sony and Marc Webb, and the studio was so happy, they assigned him the film’s sequel, which he’s currently putting together.

Emmerich, meanwhile, hasn’t done anything this small-scale since ‘The Patriot,’ as most of his other blockbusters attempt to level major cities or – as in ‘2012’ – the entire planet. The challenge of containing his action to the White House might be the creative jolt he needs.

But the success of ‘White House Down’ relies on casting, so we’ll keep you posted on who Sony hires to play the John McClane-style anti-hero. More on ‘White House Down’ as it develops, but for now, do you like Emmerich as a director on this project? Or do you wish Sony had gone in a different direction?