Roland Emmerich

The moon is gonna fall!

Save us, Halle Berry!

Roland Emmerich is a man of many catastrophes. In most instances, he’s stood by to dramatize and chronicle calamity, from an anti-American alien invasion to a gigantic irradiated lizard-monster attack to weather-event cataclysms to biblical weather-even cataclysms. On a handful of occasions, Emmerich himself has been the disaster, causing just as much metaphorical wreckage with the hilariously awful Anonymous, Stonewall, and Independence Day: Resurgence as his various hurricanes have caused literal. And yet through it all, Rollie’s continued to forge ahead, improbably wrangling the money for yet another new feature. (Though that money has come from China, but hey, a yuan’s a yuan at the end of the day.)

It must be tough being Roland Emmerich. Your passion project about the Stonewall riots gets savaged by critics and then left to die on the vine when it finally hits theaters. Next year, your big comeback — a long-awaited sequel to Independence Day, the film that remains your greatest success — goes down like the Hindenburg, mustering a faint fraction of the original’s box-office might and getting outclassed by a cartoon about a lost fish. You need a win, and luckily, you’ve got a sure thing coming down the pike: A remake of your first major blockbuster, 1994’s sci-fi adventure Stargate.

The latest episode of ‘Drunk History’ arrives just in time for October’s LGBTQ history month with an episode about the Stonewall Riots, and it’s a way more accurate telling than Roland Emmerich’s ‘Stonewall.’

You’ll find something in this year’s summer movies that has never happened before: two gay couples in two major franchise films. Considering the scarcity of LGBTQ characters in Hollywood, that’s a pretty big deal.

The box office results for Independence Day: Resurgence may not be in yet, but that hasn’t prevented director Roland Emmerich from talking sequels. According to a recent interview with Empire (via /Film), Emmerich has plans to send Earth’s most Goldblum-y defenders out among the stars.

We always knew they were coming back. After all, what epic, era-defining blockbuster doesn’t get a sequel in this day and age? None. And Independence Day truly was one of the biggest movies of the 1990s, both in terms of grosses (it was the top earner of 1996, both home and abroad) and scope, with mile-wide UFOs descending on our planet, wiping out our most treasured landmarks, and trying to eradicate our species. A few brave heroes fought back and saved our world from extinction and now, 20 years later, most of them return to fight a new alien menace in Independence Day: Resurgence (except for Will Smith, he was busy). A cast of familiar faces (Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman) and newcomers (Liam

Moonfall sounds like it could be the title of a new James Bond movie, like a combo between Moonraker and Skyfall, which — to be honest — sounds kind of great. Instead, it’s the title of Roland Emmerich’s next disaster epic, in which the director / sworn enemy of famous landmarks will once again try to destroy Earth, this time by hitting it with the moon.

Like so many Hollywood blockbusters these days, Independence Day: Resurgence ends with a beginning. Before the dust has settled on the final conflict, the next conflict is already set in motion. Rather than tying a bow around the previous two hours of planet-leveling carnage, Resurgence immediately begins teasing another sequel.