Moonfall director took financing film into his own hands

In the films of disaster-epic specialist Roland Emmerich, humanity tends to fall apart in the face of impending doom. Scientists are ignored or silenced, while the rich and powerful, who have known the truth all along, save themselves first.

Emmerich's newest film Moonfall, which deals with the destruction that results from the moon straying too close to Earth, began filming just as pandemic restrictions were introduced around the world.

Speaking to reporters at an online conference, the German film-maker, 66, says the disunited global response to the disease seems to support the scenarios shown in films such as weather-damage movie The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and his most well-known hit, the alien-invasion film Independence Day (1996).

Moonfall opens in cinemas today.

In the film, conspiracy theorist Houseman, played by British actor John Bradley, runs a website for those who, like him, believe they know the real reason for the moon's unnatural behaviour.

American actors Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson play astronauts from the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration drawn into a plan to save the Earth. There is chaos in the streets as citizens prepare themselves for the worst.

"We had the script written before Covid-19," Emmerich says, dismissing the idea that he was inspired by real events unfolding over the last two years.

Filming, which took place mostly in Montreal, Canada, was disrupted for three months before picking up again with safety measures that complicated everything. The chaos, followed by people just "soldiering through", seems to justify the mix of pessimism and optimism shown in his disaster movies, Emmerich says.

"When something this massive happens, as far as the political side of it goes, society breaks down," he adds.

Moonfall is touted as the most expensive production ever made outside Hollywood's major studio system. Emmerich says the film's budget, which amounts to a relatively modest US$120 million (S$162 million), was stitched together from global sources.

These days, no American major studio wants to finance a movie like Moonfall - a big-budget special-effects movie that is neither a sequel nor based on characters from comic books or novels.

"They just think it's too risky. They are not surefire hits," Emmerich says. "I had to take the financing into my own hands, which is bad, but it's something I like as well because of the freedom."

Like his last movie, the war drama Midway (2019), he did not face studio interference with Moonfall's creative direction.

Berry, 55, says her view of humanity reacting to the apocalypse, unlike Emmerich's, is more straightforward.

"I am an optimist," says the actress, who spoke to the media at a separate online event. She plays astronaut Jo Fowler, who has to come up with a global rescue plan even as she worries about saving her partner and children.

"I believe in the goodness of people, that things will get better," she says. "As a black woman surviving in this industry and being here for 30 years, I would have to be an optimist."

She made her feature directing debut with mixed-martial arts movie Bruised (2021, available on Netflix), in which she also stars. She performed many of her own stunts in that film, as well as in the action thriller John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019). On the set of both films, she broke her ribs.

"That's just par for the course. I welcome that challenge. I was a gymnast as a child and using my body that way is something I find wildly exciting. I accept the fact that I am going to hurt something," she says.