On Wednesday, I finally saw Moonfall, a movie that, since seeing the first trailer, I’ve been counting the days until I got to see the moon destroy the Earth. Moonfall could only be directed by Roland Emmerich, a man who has destroyed portions of Earth do often (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow that of course the only object he has left to ram into us is our own, peaceful moon. But, what if, as Emmerich proposes, our moon turned against us and decided to fall? Anyway, as you might expect, Moonfall was pure, unfiltered spectacle. And after seeing it, I just had to talk to Emmerich about it. So, I did, about an hour after I finished watching it – very much still hyped up on ice coffee and Moonfall fueled adrenaline.
The plot of Moonfall … honestly, I’m not sure I can actually explain it. It’s a lot crazier than you might even expect from a movie about the moon smashing into Earth as Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, and John Bradley try to stop the moon. (I’ve never seen a movie where people are actively “running away from the moon” before. Ahead, we talk to Emmerich, who secured the financing for Moonfall himself, which means he could do literally anything he wanted in the movie. (Spoiler: he does anything he wants.) Which means Moonfall is, truly, Roland Emmerich unleashed.
I remember seeing the commercial for this a couple of weeks ago, and I tweeted Moonfall will win an Oscar and your Twitter account favorited that.
[Laughs] It’s not going to happen, but thank you very much.
This movie lived up to everything I wanted. The moon falls!
Yeah, it’s kind of inspired by a book I read like eight, nine years ago. And it was called Who Built the Moon, very provocative question, and then answered it. And then I kind of checked out some other books and internet stuff, and so I thought it was a fascinating idea to have this thing get out of orbit. Through that we find out that it’s not a real object, and then we fly into it.
People are asking me what the plot is, and I’ve been having trouble coming up with a succinct way to do it, and what you just said is very good.
And then I also kind of said we have to, this time, use a real conspiracy theorist, which comes into the story and gets sucked into it. And then at one point, even he wanted to become an astronaut, is reluctant to do it, and finds all kinds of excuses. And they say, “Well, we need a megastructurist.”
Remember in Armageddon when Michael Bay took a shot at your Godzilla movie at the beginning of that movie? I feel like now, 24 years later, you’re like, “Oh, your little asteroid was going to hit the Earth? How about the moon!”
No, definitely not, definitely not.
Oh, come on. That’s had to have been in your head for a while…
I’m not that petty. I’m not that petty person.
But it is a bigger object than what he did…
I know, I know. But it’s also, how he had kind of the wrong Godzilla anyways! You know what I mean?
I do.
I slimmed him down! I made him fast!
I’m not kidding when I said I am in awe of this movie.
Good.
But how did you convince anyone to pay for this?
Well, this was like exactly the problem. We had this set up at Universal even before Midway, and then nothing happened really. And then I actually, kind of first time in my career said, “Okay, so how much is this worth for the people out there?” And we found some Chinese company who had committed some equity, and then another Chinese company came in, and then we sold the movie to Lionsgate, and then to the world. We got all the money together, it was a little bit less than we wanted, but it was still kind of okay.
And so, when I kind of realized all of a sudden, oh my God, I can make my own movies, I was really excited because about that. Because all of a sudden nobody’s saying anything to you. It’s only like your colleagues will once in a while say something, and that’s it. So I said to myself, “Why not do this with Moonfall?”
Is this the first movie where you just literally did anything you wanted?
It’s the second one. The first was Midway.
But compared to Midway, this one feels like Roland Emmerich unleashed.
Yeah, but it’s like whatever it is, I mean, I make different kinds of movies. But also, I’m very fearless when it comes to these kinds of scenarios.
Sure, I’ve seen your Shakespeare movie, Anonymous. I know you make different movies, but this one felt like for anyone who doesn’t think you can still make a good disaster movie, well, check this out. The moon is going to kill Earth.
Well, you have to also understand, we did this entering the COVID times. First of all, we started the movie in Montreal for two months or so. Then they shut us down. They said, You cannot work anymore, and you have to leave the country.” And then we all kind of sat around for three, four months. I then was allowed back into the country like in July or so. And then we get all the crew back. And then we actually had them to shoot over Christmas. And I had $5.6 million in COVID costs. The movie was $140 million roughly, right? Now you deduct $5.5 million in COVID costs, nearly $11 million in financing costs. That leaves you with $190 million or so.
So, was this the most challenging movie you’ve ever had to make?
Well, yes. I wanted to shoot it in 59 days, but then it didn’t work out, and it was shot in 61. But think about that, 61 shooting days with no second unit. Also, this was a movie where I didn’t build so much, you know what I mean? There was not much built. Yeah, there was the NASA thing, there was this, there was that, but most of the time it’s CGI. I mean, it was like people jumping around in front of a blue screen.
If I remember correctly, the White House in the first Independence Day was a model that you blew up. You couldn’t actually get the moon to come that close to Earth.
Right, it’s all done digitally anyways.
And I say this as the biggest compliment, the plot of this movie is insane. The last act of this movie, it just keeps getting weirder and weirder, and I’m like, what is this? This is nuts.
Exactly, that’s also kind of the trick. If you want to have a certain reaction, yeah, they’re flying inside the moon, but they don’t know really what’s going on, and you leave everything out really, which is the conclusion. There’s no conclusion, and that’s actually something I’m very proud of. So when the people then finally go in, because they’re not going in when you make it that complicated, anyway. They either come or not come, and the people who come and see that movie, they have to be so excited that they tell everybody in the world what a fantastic movie this is.
Look, it’s been a shitty couple years, and this movie is exactly what I wanted to see. And you don’t see movies like this anymore.
Well, we have like a huge problem with that. Because of the streamers, they’re like always tense, either doing really big stuff with a lot of stars, or small stuff. Doing exactly the same way it always was, but you can hardly do any movie without having an IP. Marvel, DC Comics…
Star Wars.
Star Wars. That’s pretty much it. And if this keeps going like this, this will be the death of films.
Could there be another Moonfall?
It is planned as a trilogy.
Alright!
That’s why it has a little bit open ending.
A character melds with the moon.
The line, “we have to get ready.”
By the way, John Bradley, who was always great on Game of Thrones, he’s really great in this. And I know there was someone else cast in that role before you got him…
I had him at the very beginning. I Zoomed with him and I kind of thought, I found my actor. At the very, very beginning, even before Halle and Patrick and everything.
Oh really?
And then they challenged me, and I gave in. I gave in. And then I cast Josh Gad, who is a similar type of person, but maybe a bigger name or whatever, at least here America. And luckily, to my real excitement, he couldn’t do it.
Because you got who you wanted?
And then I had a second chance at John Bradley. Because the casting is still a little bit in the hands of Lionsgate than us. It’s just this weird thing, which I want to change now too, because that’s just not right. The whole world has to see this movie, and then Lionsgate has this clause in there, has to be 50/50. Then, but what happens when you’re not 50/50, you know what I mean? So anyhow, we were totally in, and then I had John Bradley, and now John Bradley pretty much steals the movie.
I’m not sure the movie works without him.
He’s the comic relief, but with a lot of heart. He’s a sad figure. He’s a sad, sad figure who like knows the moon will crush us.
I have not seen anything like this in a long time. Or really, anything like this ever. I kept thinking I can’t believe this exists.
We were like starved for it. We finally got something.
A movie about the moon destroying the Earth, and you made it.
Okay. Thank you.
‘Moonfall’ opens in theaters everywhere on February 4th. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.