Filmonic » Roland Emmerich

Will we see an Independence Day 2?

Liam — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:09:58 +0000

Latino Review got the chance to interview director Roland Emmerich while he was on the rounds promoting his latest end of the world movie 2012, and they asking him about making a sequel to his 1996 end of the world movie Independence Day.

LatinoReview: I heard there was a script for a sequel. What’s the real reason there is no sequel?
Emmerich: Dean Devlin and I are still set to make a sequel likely because we’ve found some sort of idea and we approached FOX and FOX has not quite figured out how to incorporate Dean’s and my deal, and Will’s (Smith) deal. Will wants to do it in some sort of a package they can live with. So it’s just been in negations now since forever, and naturally FOX says “Why don’t you do it without Will Smith?” I said Will is essential for us, for this movie and actually for the audience too. And, so, it’s in limbo and lately the studios are fighting. Like gross players, and Will is a gross player and is probably the only gross player right now who’s worth his gross. So we’ll see what happens. I would love to do it.
LatinoReview: But there is a story right?
Emmerich: Oh yeah! There’s a story. There’s a very really good great story, a very cool one.

So the sequel may movie forward if they can sort out who’s getting paid what. Everyone knows Will Smith brings in the money, and he will no doubt be asking for his share.

For Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull Harrison Ford turned down an upfront fee and instead made a deal to take a % of the box office gross. As the movie made $786 million worldwide he walked away with a cool $43.3 million. Independence Day made $817 worldwide. Can you see what Smith and Emmerich are thinking here? And can you see why Fox are trying to get Emmerich to do it without Smith? They don’t want to pay him $40+ million or whatever the deal is. I haven’t done the numbers but i’d say Smith was worth it. He’s got worldwide appeal, not many actors have that.

Would you be up for an Independence Day 2? Would you see the sequel if Will Smith wasn’t involved?

A look at the special effects in 2012, and a look at 2012 without them

Liam — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:35:52 +0000

If you have seen the trailers and 5 minute preview for Roland Emmerich 2012 then you may have noticed that a great deal of special effects are involved. It’s not obvious at first but after you see California sink into the ocean, killing millions, it suddenly dawns on you that they didn’t actually sink part of America for the movie, so some of that movie magic must be involved somewhere. Well Yahoo! have posted a new feature online which takes us behind the scenes of 2012, and we get a glimpse at how they make all that craziness.

It’s clear that 2012 relies heavily on special effects, but what would the movie look like without them? It’d probably be 2 hours of this:

This 5 minute 2012 clip is absolutely crazy

Liam — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:19:34 +0000

We saw a 50 second preview yesterday and now we have the full 5 minute clip. It’s crazy, it’s over the top and it’s full of CGI. I don’t think there will be a disaster movie in the future that will be able to top this.

It begins with John Cusack driving at high speed in a limo whilst on the phone to the mother of his children. He tells her to “pack up the kids” because “California is going down”. Less than a minute later everyone is in the limo and they are driving away from an earthquake (just like people ran from the cold in The Day After Tomorrow). For the rest of the clip it’s just pure mayhem and a special effects bonanza. You’ll have to watch it to understand what I’m talking about.

Obviously this is one of those big blockbusters that’s main selling point is the special effects. The story and acting will take a back seat, but people will lap it up and it will make a tonne of money. From the clip I got the feeling that the actors were under-acting, but I can understand why. Director Roland Emmerich will have told them the basics, however I don’t even think the actors could imagine what the end result would be.

50 second 2012 preview

Liam — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:46:51 +0000

Sony Pictures have gone all out with the marketing for Roland Emmerich’s 2012 and have spent around $4 million to air two minutes of the movie on virtually every major North American network and cable channel on Thursday October 1 between 10:50 and 11:00 P.M. EST/PST. Here’s more on the deal from Heat Vision:

The studio is projecting a reach of 110 million viewers and hoping to reach about 90% of all households watching commercial TV at that time. This “roadblock,” as the studio calls it, is costing about $4 million, according to sources. The delivery is about four times the audience of the Super Bowl, considered the most widely-watched TV event in a year, with the most coveted, and most expensive (around $3 million for 30 seconds) ad time.
The two minute scene will end in a cliffhanger, with audience watchers having the opportunity to see the conclusion on fanfast.com and Comcast On Demand.
Sony aims to replicate the roadblock in other countries at the end of October. The movie opens worldwide November 13.

Below is a 50 second preview of the 2 minute clip that will be shown later today in the US. If you aren’t a fan of flying then watching this will only make it worse.

The end of the world never looked so good

Liam — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:38:37 +0000

A new trailer for Roland Emmerich’s 2012 has appeared online. The guy behind Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow has outdone himself this time. Not only do we have bigger tsunami’s than we’ve ever seen on-screen, we also have earthquakes, meteors, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes and giraffes. The trailer is rather epic and contains a dozen great money shot scenes, but the problem with Emmerich’s films is that they look cool, but the characters and emotion take a backseat. Yes, we see them crying while being taken out by a tidal wave in the trailer, but I doubt we will give a damn while watching the film. I hope I’m wrong though.

Anyway, here it is:

2012 moved closer to 2012

Liam — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:22:47 +0000

Sony have moved Roland Emmerich’s feel good movie of the year 2012 back 4 months to November 13th. From The Hollywood Reporter:

“We’ve had such success with the James Bond films in November that we wanted a big tentpole film in that slot this year,” Sony distribution president Rory Bruer said Tuesday. “We’ve got so many films in the summer that this is the perfect answer to that.”

It will now go up against Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

In 2012 the world is devastated by a cataclysm in the year 2012, leaving survivors to struggle for their lives. We’ve already seen the teaser trailer showing a monk getting jiggy with a bell after witnessing the biggest wave in movie history. We can also expect natural disasters such as supervolanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes and Joaquin Phoenix’s rap album.

Roland Emmerich directing Foundation trilogy

Liam — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:05:21 +0000

The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 director Roland Emmerich will direct a film adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation science fiction trilogy. Columbia Pictures won the rights at auction after going against Fox and Warner Bros.

From Variety:

Originally published as a series of eight short stories in Astounding Magazine beginning in 1942, “Foundation” is a complex saga about humans who are scattered on planets throughout the galaxy, living under the rule of the Galactic Empire.
A psycho-historian who can scientifically read the future sees an imminent empire collapse, and sets to work preparing to save the knowledge of mankind.

Roland Emmerich has a habit of making things look great, however the films themselves tend to have weak scripts, plotholes and WTF moments (running away from the cold in TDAT anyone?). Hopefully as he will be adapting from someone else’s great work this trilogy might end up rather good.