Roland Emmerich won't be making that low-budget Cloverfield-esque movie after all

A mere week after the news that Roland Emmerich would try making an alien invasion movie that cost merely a small assload of money as opposed to multiple assloads, The Hollywood Reporter says that the director’s The Zone has been scrapped. While no official reason has been given, “rumors abound” that the film’s “found-footage sci-fi” conceit was already in danger of being played out: Not only is it reminiscent of Cloverfield, as previously noted, but also other forthcoming found-footage movies like Gareth Edwards’ Monsters, Troll Hunter, the recently acquired spec script Dark Moon, and especially Apollo 18, which would have seen release a mere month before The Zone.

Although he won’t be reinventing himself as a “low-budget” auteur just yet, Emmerich is still set to upend his public image with the forthcoming Anonymous, which is a “political thriller” speculating on the true identity of who wrote William Shakespeare’s plays, and whether it’s the same guy who blew up the Globe Theatre and the Tower of London like “Ka-BOOOOOM!” Nah, just kidding. He’s branching out.