Roland Emmerich Set To Direct “Die Hard On Pennsylvania Ave” Movie ‘White House Down’
Roland Emmerichhas already blown up the White House, inIndependence Day, and now he’s going to oversee a hostile takeover of the joint. The director is in talks to makeWhite House Down, the script thatThe Amazing Spider-ManandZodiacwriterJames Vanderbiltrecentlysold to Sonyfor a cool three million dollars.
We don’t know much about the film, other than that it has been compared to a mixture ofDie HardandAir Force One, butDeadlinenotes that it “focuses on a paramilitary takeover of the White House.”
There is no casting yet, but the film is reportedly next for Emmerich, and it will shoot in the fall, after which he’ll makethe sci-fi filmSingularity.
This isn’t the first time Emmerich has looked at a White House thriller. Back in 2004 he was looking at making a film calledAnthem, about “an impeached president who refuses to leave the White House. Meanwhile, an FBI agent is rushing to discover the truth behind a top-level conspiracy that threatens to undermine the Constitution.”
Prior toAnonymousI would have shrugged off the idea that Emmerich could capably handle a constrained thriller along the lines of howWhite House Downis described. And while I can’t say I perk up at the idea of him making this movie,Anonymousdoes suggest he’s better suited for it than much of his earlier work would have suggested. (Which isn’t a blanket endorsement of his Shakespeare film, which has a few elements that don’t quite work. But I did find Anonymous to be more entertaining than most of the last decade of his stuff.)
