Roland Emmerich's sci-fi movie 'Moonfall' finally gets release date

American film production and distribution studio Lionsgate, on Wednesday announced that Roland Emmerich's much-awaited sci-fi film 'Moonfall' will finally be releasing on February 4, 2022.

According to Deadline, Lionsgate acquired the film's North American rights in late 2019 after a high-profile sales launch at Cannes where Centropolis, AGC and CAA sold out on the project worldwide.

Production was about to go underway in Canada when COVID-19 hit, causing months of delays. The shoot eventually began in October in Montreal.

The big-canvas film, which has a reported budget of USD 140 million and is also the biggest-budget "independent" movie to be shot in years, stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Pena, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Yu, Eme Ikwuakor, Carolina Bartczak and Donald Sutherland.

In 'Moonfall', a mysterious force knocks the moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it.

With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Berry) is convinced that she has the key to saving everyone, but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper (Wilson), and conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (Bradley) believe her. The unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space only to find out that our moon is not what we think it is.

Emmerich has directed and penned the script of the movie, along with Harald Kloser and Spenser Cohen. Emmerich and Kloser are also serving as producers.

As per Deadline, 'Moonfall' will be the first big movie to stake out the early-February date next year. Right now, it is bookended the week before by Columbia's 'Morbius' and two weeks later by Sony's 'Uncharted'.

( With inputs from ANI )