Say what you will about the 10,000 B.C. director (and we have), but at least the man knows his station in the movie universe. “I'm making movies for the masses,” says Roland Emmerich in a recent interview with The Guardian. “These movies are expensive. A lot of people have to see it, like it and come back. If you start making movies for film critics, you've lost.”
If there’s one thing nobody has ever accused Emmerich of doing, it’s making movies for film critics. But of course, everyone is a critic, including Emmerich’s own mother, who did not particularly care for the director’s breakthrough hit, Universal Soldier. “She was just upset with me that there was so much blood in it - and she was right…I can't say that I like it. But I'm comfortable with it now. When you're not loved by the critics, it's very hard for anyone to say anything good about your movie.”
Although he was a film student in Germany during the heyday of Fassbinder and Wim Wenders, Emmerich doesn’t pretend the New German Cinema was ever an influence on his work (and again, it’s not like anyone is saying otherwise). “Everybody is always so careful about these things. I mean, I'm good friends with Wim Wenders, but it doesn't mean I have to like his movies. Some of them, I like. Most of them, I find boring. And I would tell him that to his face.” We’re still awaiting Wenders’ thoughts on The Patriot and The Day After Tomorrow.
Still, even though he’s always loved the big-budget Hollywood blockbusters that are his bread and butter today, Emmerich would appreciate a little credit for following his own path. “Emmerich has yet to make a sequel or tackle a popular comic-book franchise, preferring instead to collaborate with other writers on his own ideas,” Guardian writer Steven Goldman insists, apparently forgetting that Godzilla was rampaging through Tokyo before Emmerich was born. “Rather than presenting himself as a director for hire, he has increasingly sought to maintain creative control over his own fare by selling his scripts at auction.” You see that, Hollywood? Roland Emmerich doesn’t need your big, dumb ideas! He has plenty of big, dumb ideas of his own!
