The first five minutes of Roland Emmerich's space thriller, Moonfall, are now available to watch online. The director has been behind a bevy of disaster films over the years, beginning with Will Smith's Independence Day in 1996 and following that up with Godzilla (1998), The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and even an Independence Day follow-up in 2016, subtitled Resurgence. His most recent film, the star-studded World War II thriller, Midway, released in 2019.
Along with disaster flicks, Emmerich has also made numerous movies set in outer space over the years, such as the German-language Noah's Ark Principle, Moon 44, and Stargate. His next venture into the cosmos will marry his love of disaster movies and space thrillers. Moonfall finds a mysterious force knocking the Moon off it its orbit, which sends it hurling towards Earth. With just a few weeks' time before impact, NASA executive Jo Fowler (Halle Berry) discovers the secret to saving humanity, but is only able to convince one astronaut, Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), and a conspiracy theorist, K.C. Houseman (Game of Thrones' John Bradley), to help her. Moonfall also stars Charlie Plummer, Michael Peña, and Donald Sutherland.
Now, courtesy of Lionsgate, the first five minutes of Moonfall are now available to watch online ahead of its release on February 4, 2022. The film's opening scene finds Harper (Wilson) and Marcus (Frank Fiola) on a spacewalk with Fowler (Berry) remaining inside the ship as the three astronauts converse nonchalantly about the song playing in the background, Toto's "Africa," when suddenly, they collide head-on with a large mass of debris. Watch the clip below:
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Moonfall's opening scene is heavily reminiscent of Alfonso Cuarón's 2013 space thriller, Gravity, as that film also begins with two astronauts (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) colliding with a cloud of debris while on a spacewalk, which damages their ship and leaves them stranded. Although Emmerich's film plays up the element of mystery a lot more, as the indiscernible force that knocks them off orbit appears to be otherworldly. It was already known from Moonfall's trailer that the sci-fi film would be taking a few liberties with history, as its version of Apollo 11 was orchestrated for a very different reason, as revealed by Sutherland's Holdenfield.
Give the spectacle they tend to offer, Emmerich's films usually perform fairly well at the box office, but garner mixed reception from critics. While it is still somewhat early on in the movie's marketing campaign, it appears Moonfall will be no different. Emmerich's latest disaster offering is currently slated for a theatrical release early next year.
Source: Lionsgate
