Roland Emmerich is known for making big screen epic adventures where disaster befalls the world. Josh Gad is known for making family friendly Disney movies. These two are coming together, but they're not meeting in the middle. Instead, Gad is the first actor cast in Moonfall, the next big disaster movie from Emmerich, which will see the moon, well...fall.
Moonfall is being described as an ensemble movie, so there will be many more casting announcements made, but Josh Gad's role is key to the story. According to THR, Gad will play a character named KC Houseman who is the scientist who first realizes that the moon is falling out of its orbit. The character is described as a genius, but one who is as disorganized as he is brilliant. It's the sort of character we've seen before, the dishevel genius, but honestly, Josh Gad feels like a perfect fit for that sort of role.
Moonfall has a sort of Armageddon feel where the moon is knocked from its orbit and is set to collide with earth, leading to a mission to land on the lunar surface to avert the catastrophe. The team heading to the moon will likely make up the a large part of the rest of the main cast. We can expect actors to be found to fill out those roles in the near future now that we know casting is underway.
Roland Emmerich's last film was Midway, which used the director's trademark style on a real world event. Now, he's heading off in the other direction with a science fiction story closer to Independence Day than World War II. At this point, it certainly feels like a less realistic global disaster would be preferable.
Josh Gad will next be seen in Artemis Fowl. The film was planned for a Memorial Day Weekend theatrical release, but now the movie will hit Disney+ on June 12.
Moonfall is hoping to begin shooting sometime this fall. While that seems plausible at this point, everything is still very much up in the air regarding film productions right now. It looks like things are slowly getting back underway, and if there are no surprises, then a fall production date will likely be fine.
Still, it will be interesting to see how new films navigate the difficulties that have spiraled out from the closing down of productions. Depending on when some films are able to get back to work, and how much longer it will take to get them finished, much of the cast and crew that might be involved in something like Moonfall might be booked. Production could get delayed even once things are back to normal because of the shuffling that almost certainly isn't done when it comes to production and release dates.
