Roland Emmerich is being pursued as the director for Sony Pictures’ White House Down, a spec script by The Amazing Spider-Man writer James Vanderbilt recently acquired for a whopping $3 million. Emmerich, who obliterated 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in both Independence Day and 2012 (io9 once wrote, “You gotta respect a man who made a career of blowing up the White House”), would have to resist his destructive tendencies for a film that treats the White House as a setting rather than an explosive device. Time to let it go, Roland. Spend some time in the place. Maybe you’ll get to like it.
