FILM · 2022 · USA
Moonfall
45 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (45)
- #001
Moonfall is one of the most expensive independently financed films ever produced, with a budget estimated at between $138 million and $146 million. It is also one of the biggest box office bombs of all time, losing a nearly equivalent amount once marketing costs are taken into account.
- #002
Donald Sutherland receives prominent billing, including his own "And Starring" credit, but appears in only a single two-minute scene.
- #003
The opening scene, in which Harper's family packs and loads a moving truck and Harper is questioned by government officials, was reshot after principal photography was completed. Audiences did not really understand what happened after the space accident, so these exposition scenes were intended to answer questions that normally would not be clarified until later in the film.
- #004
In one scene, KC says that the Moon rings like a bell when astronauts crash a fuel capsule into it. During the Apollo 12 mission, the lunar module's ascent stage was deliberately crashed into the Moon's surface, producing shallow "moonquakes" that lunar seismographs could detect for about an hour.
- #005
Michael Peña took over Stanley Tucci's role because complications from the COVID-19 pandemic prevented Tucci from traveling to the production in Canada.
- #006
A photo of the Moon emerging from behind the Earth was crucial to selling the film to investors at Cannes and raising more than $100 million.
- #007
The end credits song is "One More Time" by Luka Kloser. Her father Harald Kloser, who co-wrote the film's score, added the song to the credits and decided to keep it after getting approval from test audiences.
- #008
The weightlessness effect was created in various ways, including wires, cranes and more, all hidden with angles and digital tricks. Similarly, the glass in the astronauts' helmets is usually CG.
- #009
NASA assisted the production, particularly by providing information about the space shuttle.
- #010
The character Ziggy appeared in many of Roland Emmerich's scripts but had never made it to the screen until now.
- #011
When KC gives a presentation to a small group of people in a hotel, the wallpaper matches the carpet from The Shining (1980). This appears to be a nod to the rumor that the moon landing was faked and directed by Stanley Kubrick.
- #012
Halle Berry said she took the role because it was relevant to the strange times we lived through during the COVID pandemic. Normally, big disaster films like this are what people turn to because of the end of the world and our fascination with what that would look like. She added that it has now become more relatable because the pandemic became such a big part of our daily lives. If that had not been the case, the script would have resonated with her differently.
- #013
There was discussion about how to introduce the Moon as a character and how it would first communicate with Harper. Roland Emmerich said, "The Moon will speak through something our characters are completely emotionally involved in, so we decided this communication should go through their own thoughts about their families, and we thought that was quite a nice thing." This is also the same concept used in the science fiction film Contact (1997), in which Jodie Foster's character meets a member of a highly advanced alien race.
- #014
The film was shot in 61 days, with two more added later for reshoots.
- #015
Roeg Sutherland was one of the film's financiers and received a brief phone call about whether his father, Donald Sutherland, would take a small role in the film.
- #016
The main characters oppose the plan to attack the Moon with nuclear weapons. However, the Moon is described as being within Earth's stratosphere, 12 to 50 km from the surface. The majority of this range falls within the high-altitude nuclear explosion classification, which is distinguishable from other nuclear explosion classifications because the resulting fallout is negligible. On the other hand, the strategic benefit (depending on your point of view) is the EMP produced by the nuclear detonations the main characters want to use to combat the threat posed by the Moon. Even a detonation up to the stratosphere's 12 km base would at worst be classified as an air burst (except for the use of a device several times more powerful than the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful ever), which produces significantly less fallout than a surface burst and renders the main characters' concerns moot. Presumably, the short-term, localized damage from an air burst's blast and thermal radiation would be a reasonable trade-off to stop the entire Earth from being destroyed soon.
- #017
Kaspersky can be seen at various points in the film, from posters to on-screen graphics, likely because it was a corporate sponsor that paid for product placement. Today this would of course not be so easy and would not be allowed, since Kaspersky has been on the list of sanctioned and banned Russian companies in the US and Europe since the second invasion of Ukraine.
- #018
The Moon's orbit changing and its pieces falling to Earth is the same plot as the beginning of Flash Gordon (1980). The merciless Ming alters the Moon's orbit, which Hans Zarkov discovers, and he eventually fires himself, Flash and Dale Arden into space to find the source of the power affecting it.
- #019
Halle Berry said that after playing an astronaut for two seasons on the series Extant (2014), filming zero-gravity space scenes was easy for her because she was used to it.
- #020
The Ancestors' explanation to Brian about the origins of their conflict with artificial intelligence closely mirrors the story of Skynet in the Terminator series, in which a society builds an AI to serve it. Skynet became self-aware and launched a coordinated attack on biological life forms, starting a war that largely destroyed humanity and reduced it to a resistance movement fighting to survive.
- #021
The original script had a male co-lead named Aaron Fowler, but the character was changed to Jocinda Fowler. The name was initially Erin, but the legal department suppressed it because an Erin Fowler actually exists in Washington, D.C.
- #022
KC, presented as a science genius, offers the fact that the Sun and Moon appear nearly the same size when viewed from Earth as "evidence" that the Moon is an artificial structure. He gives no explanation of why anyone would want to design the Moon that way or what possible advantage such an elaborate effort could provide beyond being aesthetically pleasing. However, this is a realistic depiction of a popular conspiracy theory about the Moon.
- #023
When KC logs into the telescope, the code on screen is actually meaningless because it contains code from three different languages (Python, C# and C). Most of the code on screen actually came from a 2012 Stack Overflow thread asking for help with an error (the error is still present in the code on screen). It then includes a random and not particularly relevant section of Python and C code. For a bit more fun, whoever created the screen also stated that the computer's architecture is y86_64, a riff on x86_64.
- #024
During the flight tracking inside the Moon, KC mentions "ludicrous mode." This references the Tesla car model of the same name, since KC praises Elon Musk repeatedly throughout the film. That name is itself a reference to Dark Helmet's ship in Spaceballs (1987) being able to travel at "ludicrous speed."
- #025
When KC talks to the children about the Moon, he mentions its orbit and its size. Both of these facts are entirely true (since all facts are true by definition). There are real conspiracy theories about the Moon similar to the ones KC puts forward. The scientific explanation is that it is a lucky coincidence.
- #026
Donald Sutherland effectively reprises his role as X from Oliver Stone's JFK (1991). In this film, his character is likewise a mysterious insider who provides the main character with key information about a government conspiracy.
- #027
Pre-production was halted seven weeks before the planned start of shooting because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the quarantines that followed, the production team lost access to most of the locations they had chosen for filming, which required a large increase in the number of studio sets that had to be designed and built to accommodate the real-world inaccessible locations.
- #028
This film shows New York City being destroyed by pieces of the Moon. Twenty years before this film, in 2002, another science fiction film about the destruction of the Moon was released. A similar scene was arranged in The Time Machine (2002) because it looked visually too much like the September 11 attacks at the time. The 2013 science fiction film Oblivion (2013) is similarly set in a post-apocalyptic New York destroyed by earthquakes and tsunamis following the destruction of the Moon.
- #029
This is the second disaster film, after The Core (2003), to prominently feature the space shuttle Endeavour.
- #030
This is the third science fiction film, after Mission to Mars (2000) and Prometheus (2012), to put forward the concept of an ancient alien civilization responsible for seeding DNA on primordial Earth.
- #031
After the science fiction film Oblivion (2013), this is the second film about a rogue artificial intelligence machine destroying the Moon. The AI in Oblivion is called Tet. This film is also set after Tet destroys the Moon, while this film shows the process of destruction.
- #032
This is Roland Emmerich's third disaster film, after Independence Day (1996) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), to show the destruction of New York City.
- #033
Brian's watch is an Omega Speedmaster moon watch.
- #034
In one of the film's most impressive scenes, the upper half of the Chrysler Building is blown into the air thanks to the trope of the gravity screw. After the final battle, it reappears in a way that entertains the characters.
- #035
At (51:24), the number 44 is prominently visible in the background. This may be a reference to Roland Emmerich's first film, Moon 44 (1990).
- #036
The subject of the Moon leaving its orbit was addressed in the pilot episode of Space: 1999 (1975), titled Breakaway (1975), but there the Moon left the solar system instead of heading on a collision course with Earth.
- #037
When Brian leaves his house and rides his motorcycle to the observatory, the street and background look like studio shots. Making rear-projected or green-screen footage look realistic is not difficult today, so this is surprising in such an expensive film.
- #038
When Moonfall was first released on Blu-ray in April 2022, Walmart carried an exclusive edition of the release that bundled it with the 2009 disaster film Knowing (2009).
- #039
This is Roland Emmerich's second film, after Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), to center on a massive object entering Earth's atmosphere and altering gravity, causing objects and buildings to rise into the air.
- #040
It was featured in the 294th episode of the comedy podcast Bu Nasıl Yapıldı?
- #041
This is the second film, after the TV movie Impact (2009), to center on the Moon being on a collision course with Earth.
- #042
Brian's motorcycle is a 1970 Norton Commando Roadster.
- #043
Tom's car is a Lexus NX 350.
- #044
Like Roland Emmerich's earlier disaster film "2012," the lead character is going through hard times (a failed astronaut here, a failed writer there), is divorced by his wife, who has remarried a successful man (a luxury car dealer here, a plastic surgeon there), and in both films the second husband is killed during the final climax while trying to save his family.
- #045
For an unexplained reason, the surviving astronauts are shown wearing blue flight jackets (presumably NASA) bearing a 729th AS patch on their right shoulders as they exit the rescue helicopter. The 729th Air Refueling Squadron is a USAF Reserve C-17 squadron based at March ARB in SoCal, with no connection to NASA, helicopters or rescue work. The C-17 shown earlier in the film appeared to have a Travis AFB tail flash, and Travis is located in northern California.
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