‘Independence Day’ Director Roland Emmerich Tackles WWII in Debut Trailer for ‘Midway’

German director Roland Emmerich is sort of the discount Paul Verhoeven, directing plenty of crowd pleasers but never elevating them above the form. Emmerich has spent the past few years "finding himself" with low key disasters like Anonymous and Stonewall, and big budget disasters like White House Down and Independence Day: Resurgence. Now with having covered the Revolutionary War in The Patriot, Emmerich is headed to World War II for the upcoming film Midway.

While the 1976 film Midway starring Chuck Heston, Hank Fonda, and Bob Mitchum focused solely on the titular 1942 battle, Emmerich's version will begin with the attack on Pearl Harbor. This does Emmerich's film no favors as it positively reeks of Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, borrowing that film's balletic air battles and desaturated color palate.

The film boasts one bona fide A-lister in Woody Harrelson, along with a moderately stacked cast of B-and-C-list stars like Patrick Wilson, Mandy Moore, Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Dennis Quaid, a Jonas Brother, and Deadpool's Ed Skrein. Did the world need another film version of the Battle of Midway? Probably not, but this one's got all the trappings of a big time action movie directed by the guy who did 1998's Godzilla.

Midway flies into theaters on November 8.