EXCLUSIVE: As the Roland Emmerich-directed sci-fi sequel Independence Day: Resurgence kicks off the first weekend of summer box office in North America today, Universal Pictures has closed a deal for the filmmaker’s next epic-sized sci-fi picture. The studio spent seven figures to acquire Moonfall, a spec script that Emmerich wrote with his 2012 collaborator Harald Kloser and Spencer Cohen, latter of whom scripted the sci-fi pic Extinction for Good Universe and Mandeville. Emmerich will direct the film and produce it with Kloser. The picture will be fast-tracked.

The studio has been in the mix on the script along with Sony Pictures and Fox, both of which have made successful big-canvas films with Emmerich. This one is best described as Emmerich’s 2012 mashed together with Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, following an unlikely band of misfits who must unite to save humanity when the moon falls out of orbit and hurtles towards earth.

20th Century Fox

This is the seventh collaboration between Emmerich and Kloser, with the others being 2004’s The Day After Tomorrow, 2008’s 10,000 BC, 2009’s 2012, 2011’s Anonymous, 2013’s White House Down and Independence Day: Resurgence.

Emmerich and Kloser are repped by CAA and attorney John Diemer of Bloom Hergott; Cohen by WME and attorney Scott Whitehead of McKuin Frankel Whitehead LLP.