Has Roland Emmerich lost his mind?
In an odd course of action for the German tent-pole director, THR’s Heat Vision has it Emmerich is surreptitiously entering THE ZONE, a found-footage alien invasion film to made on the cheap. Word is, much like SKLYLINE and to a lesser extent MONSTERS, Emmerich will make a large-scale movie on a small-scale budget…eyeing a bottom line as high as $5 million to make the movie (they could make it for less).
French scribe Guillaume Tunzini (FROGZ) will write the script, which will be largely improvised by a stable of unknown actors. While nothing is greatly detailed, word is one character will be a weathered 40-50 year old journalist and another his younger, 20-ish black cameraman. No word who’ll portray said parts.
Emmerich plans to shoot THE ZONE in mid-November…Sony is said to distribute the film as a negative pickup.
Okay, so what do we make of this. Emmerich, who loves to do large scale destruction, has obviously declined with each successive outing (ID4, DAY AFTER TOMORROW, 2012)…can a drastic budget decrease help the man’s cause? Has he become too enamored with CG and epic artifice…so much so that he feels the need to scale it back and do something a bit more intimate…more affective rather than effective? I tend to think so…and also tend to think it a good idea.
What says you?