Roland Emmerich Movies and Career Information

Roland Emmerich began his carrier in directing, producing and screenwriting while living in his native Germany. As a director he is best known for big budget, visual effects-laden adventure films. While attending the University of Television and Film Munich in the late 1970s, Emmerichs student film The Noah's Ark Principle became a widespread success. The futuristic science fiction movie opened in the 1984 Berlin Film Festival and was eventually sold to over 20 countries. After seeing his 1990 English-language film Moon 44, film producer Mario Kassar hired Emmerich to work on films in the United States. In 1992, Emmerich directed the Jean-Claude Van Damme staring Universal Soldier, and worked on the surprisingly successful science-fiction movie Stargate. Emmerich next film was 1996s gigantic blockbuster Independence Day. The alien-invasion flick remains one of the most successful pictures of all time, grossing over $10 million in its first opening week. However, Emmerichs 1998 remake of the popular Japanese monster series Godzilla was a huge failure both with critics and audiences, despite a heavy amount of publicity. After mixing-it-up in 2000 directing the Mel Gibson revolutionary war action-drama The Patriot, Emmerich went back to his sci-fi roots with 2004s apocalyptic action film The Day After Tomorrow. 10,000 BC, a computer graphics heavy prehistoric adventure film, is Emmerichs most recent directorial offering.