Roland Emmerich

• 1. Introduction

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  Roland Emmerich's films have earned more than $3 billion at the worldwide box office. That makes him the 17th-highest-grossing Hollywood director of all time. The movie industry calls him a "master of disaster," a label that suits a filmography built around alien invasions, flash-frozen continents, and colliding moons. He was born on the 10th of November 1955 in Stuttgart, West Germany, and grew up in the nearby town of Sindelfingen. His father, Hans, was the founder of a garden machinery production company. What drove a boy from a small German town into the center of Hollywood's largest productions? And why, after decades of mixed critical reception, has he never stopped?

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• 2. A German Education

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  In 1977, Emmerich enrolled at the University of Television and Film Munich to study production design. He had traveled widely across Europe and North America as a youth. He arrived at the school with an eye for sets and spaces rather than stories. Watching Star Wars changed his direction entirely. He switched to the school's film director program and committed fully to that path.

  The school required a short film as a final thesis, but Emmerich completed a full-length feature in 1981: The Noah's Ark Principle. Three years later, the 34th Berlin International Film Festival chose it as its opening film. That opening-night position is one of the most prominent available to a debut work in European cinema.

  In 1985, he co-founded Centropolis Film Productions with his sister, producer Ute Emmerich. That same year he directed Joey, his first commercial feature. Hollywood-Monster followed in 1987, and the science-fiction film Moon 44 in 1990. All three were released theatrically only in and around Germany. Emmerich shot them in English and deliberately pushed against conventional German filmmaking styles. Moon 44 reached the United States direct-to-video in early 1991. The other two eventually appeared on US home video under different titles: Joey became Making Contact and Hollywood-Monster became Ghost Chase. One of Moon 44's cast members was Dean Devlin, an American actor who would soon become the most important collaborator of Emmerich's career.

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• 3. The Devlin Partnership

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  Producer Mario Kassar invited Emmerich to the United States to direct a futuristic action film called Isobar. Dean Devlin joined him as his writing and producing partner. When studio executives rejected Devlin's rewrite of the script, Emmerich refused the project entirely. He was then hired to replace director Andrew Davis on Universal Soldier, an action film released in 1992.

  Stargate, released in 1994, set a record for the highest-grossing opening weekend ever for a film released in October. It performed far better commercially than most in the film industry had anticipated. Independence Day followed in 1996 and achieved what no previous film had managed: it grossed $100 million in less than a week. At one point, it held the position of the second-highest-grossing film in worldwide box office history.

  Emmerich and Devlin created a television series called The Visitor for the Fox Network. It aired during 1997-1998 and was cancelled after one season. Godzilla followed in 1998, preceded by an extensive advertising and marketing campaign that generated significant anticipation. The film was a box office success but drew sharp critical opposition. It earned a Saturn Award for Best Special Effects and the Audience Award for Best Director at the European Film Awards. A BMI Film Music Award came with it as well. It also received a Razzie Award for Worst Remake or Sequel and holds a 16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

  Emmerich later admitted regretting his decision to direct Godzilla. He cited his unfamiliarity with the earlier Godzilla films as one factor. Time pressure during production and the studio's refusal to test-screen the film were others. He had originally planned a disaster film centered on an asteroid strike, but abandoned the concept after Armageddon pursued a similar idea. He also turned down a later offer to direct Spider-Man, citing his lack of interest in comic books and superhero fiction.

  The Patriot, released in 2000, marked a shift in tone. It is one of only five films in Emmerich's career for which he did not contribute to the screenplay. It received a generally favorable critical and commercial response. The film remains his best-reviewed work to date. That same year, his long creative partnership with Devlin came to an end.

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• 4. The Long Game

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  Harald Kloser became Emmerich's new screenwriting partner. Their first collaboration was The Day After Tomorrow in 2004. The film depicted a rapidly advancing ice age driven by the effects of global warming. Emmerich founded a second production company, Reelmachine, in Germany after completing it.

  10,000 BC arrived in 2008, a film about the journeys of a prehistoric tribe of mammoth hunters. It performed well at the box office but drew widespread critical dismissal as his weakest film to that point. He had been developing a remake of the 1966 science-fiction film Fantastic Voyage. He departed that project after clashing with its producer, James Cameron.

  The 2009 disaster film 2012 centered on the theory that ancient Mayans had prophesied the world's end on the 21st of December 2012. Despite mixed reviews, it became Emmerich's second-highest-grossing release, behind only Independence Day. In 2011, Sony Pictures purchased a pitch for Singularity, an Emmerich science-fiction project about a man composed of nanomachines. The project went into development hell.

  Anonymous, released on the 28th of October 2011, was a historical thriller. Its central premise was that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, had written the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. The film underperformed at the box office, a result that observers connected to a decline in Emmerich's career trajectory. During the Anonymous production, friends encouraged Emmerich to make a film about the Stonewall riots. Stonewall opened in 2015.

  White House Down opened on the 28th of June 2013. It was based on a spec script written by James Vanderbilt that Sony Pictures had purchased for $3 million in March 2012. Emmerich filmed it at La Cite Du Cinema in Montreal, Quebec.

  Independence Day: Resurgence arrived on the 24th of June 2016, two decades after the original. In November 2019, Emmerich directed Midway, a film set during the Pacific Theater battle of the same name. Moonfall, released by Lionsgate in 2022, had a production budget of $150 million. Emmerich has said he has been developing a television series about T. E. Lawrence for roughly a decade. In June 2023, he announced Space Nation, a franchise planned to include a massive multiplayer online game, a television series, animated shorts, and spinoff games.

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• 5. The Popcorn Defense

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  Emmerich has described his goal as providing "popcorn" entertainment, and himself as "a filmmaker, not a scientist." Reviewers regularly fault his films for heavy reliance on visual effects, clichéd dialogue, formulaic plots, scientific and historical inaccuracies, and limited character depth. He says he starts with actual science or history and builds his own fiction around it. The goal is to make whatever message he is sending more exciting to a general audience.

  When The Day After Tomorrow arrived in 2004, some criticized its scenes of New York City's destruction. The film was released less than three years after the September 11 attacks, and the charge was insensitivity. Emmerich countered that a mass disaster scenario was the most effective way to show the increased unity people feel when facing catastrophe together. He has defended repeated city-destruction sequences on similar grounds, linking them to his concerns about global warming and absent government planning for doomsday scenarios.

  Stonewall drew sustained criticism from within the LGBT community. The film was accused of whitewashing the riots. Critics said it marginalized the contributions of transgender women of color, who were central to the events. Emmerich responded by characterizing the Stonewall riots as "a white event," a statement that drew further criticism. The film holds a 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 30 out of 100 on Metacritic.

  Johnny Gayzmonic, writing for Unicorn Booty, criticized Independence Day: Resurgence for falling short of Emmerich's stated commitment to LGBT representation. Emmerich had touted the film as featuring a gay couple. Gayzmonic argued the two characters lacked believable chemistry and functioned solely as comic relief. One was killed off in a scene that served no story purpose. References to their relationship had been cut from the Chinese release of the film.

  Emmerich continues to defend Godzilla, noting that it was highly profitable. He says it is the film fans most often mention when they tell him about their children watching his movies repeatedly.

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• 6. Beyond the Screen

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  In 2006, Emmerich pledged $150,000 to the Legacy Project, a campaign dedicated to gay and lesbian film preservation. He made the donation on behalf of Outfest, and it became the largest gift in that organization's history. The following year, he held a fundraiser at his Los Angeles home for Hillary Clinton, then a Democratic Party presidential candidate.

  Emmerich has stated that producers and studio executives resisted his casting of Will Smith in Independence Day. The same groups were reluctant to allow him to portray an interracial couple in The Day After Tomorrow. He has described facing homophobia from the same groups and says he is vocal in his opposition to such behavior.

  Emmerich became a U.S. citizen in 2011, retaining his German citizenship. He said he had waited because he did not want to become American under Bush. He wanted to cast a vote in the next elections. He is married to Omar De Soto.

  He owns homes in Los Angeles, New York City, London, and Stuttgart. He decorates his homes in what he calls an "outlandish" manner. His collection includes rare Hollywood memorabilia, murals, portraits of dictators and Communist figures, and World War II militaria. Among the pieces is a painting of Jesus wearing a Katharine Hamnett-styled T-shirt during the crucifixion. He owns prints of Alison Jackson's work depicting a Princess Diana lookalike. A wax sculpture shows Pope John Paul II laughing while reading his own obituary. Another piece is a Photoshopped image of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a homoerotic pose. Emmerich describes these pieces not as declarations of belief but as expressions of his "predilection for art with a political edge."

  Emmerich once smoked as many as four packs of cigarettes a day. He has often incorporated characters who try to quit smoking or who warn against tobacco use into his films. He serves as one of the producers of The 1 Second Film, a non-profit project raising money for women's rights in the developing world. He has advocated for stunt performers to receive recognition at the Academy Awards. He has described the movie business as sometimes "very cold, brutal." His stated motivation for continuing to direct is that he genuinely likes making movies.

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