Josh Gad Heads to Outer Space for Roland Emmerich’s ‘Moonfall’

By Dave McNary

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Josh Gad has been cast in Roland Emmerich’s science-fiction project “Moonfall,” which has been set up at Lionsgate.

“Moonfall” centers on a mysterious force knocking the moon from its orbit around Earth, which sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it. In response, a ragtag team launches an impossible last-ditch mission into space to land on the lunar surface and save Earth from annihilation. Gad will portray a scientific genius who has correctly concluded that the moon has fallen out of its orbit.

“Moonfall” will be directed by Emmerich from a script he wrote with his “2012” co-writer Harald Kloser and Spenser Cohen. Emmerich is producing under his Centropolis banner with Kloser producing through his company, Street Entertainment.

AGC sold North American rights to Lionsgate in November in the wake of the studio seeing respectable box office from its  handling the release of Emmerich’s World War II drama “Midway.” Emmerich’s credits as a director-producer include both “Independence Day” movies, “2012,” “White House Down,” “The Day After Tomorrow,” “10,000 B.C.” and “Moon 44.”

Gad broke out in the original Broadway production of “The Book of Mormon” as Elder Arnold Cunningham, for which he received a Tony nomination in 2012. He voiced Olaf in the “Frozen” movies, LeFou in “Beauty and the Beast” and Chuck in the “Angry Birds” movies. Other feature credits include “Marshall,” “Murder on the Orient Express” and Mulch Duggins in Disney’s upcoming “Artemis Fowl.”