The upcoming Independence Day: Resurgence movie, opening June 23, is directed by Roland Emmerich.

The German filmmaker has made other end-of-humanity movies, such as The Day After Tomorrow and 2012.

Independence Day: Resurgence's trailer made a splash in Singapore when it came out in February this year, as it showed Marina Bay Sands getting blown up together with the rest of the Singapore bay area.

In an interview with Channel News Asia in Sydney recently to promote the upcoming movie, this was what Emmerich said about why he chose to blow up Marina Bay:

Interviewer: What made you choose Singapore to blow up?

Emmerich: Because it is a very attractive skyline. It's very kinda nice-looking, and I also like to say, it's the recognisability of the landmarks which count for me. That's why I also kind of later, throw Asian buildings on London, because London everybody knows, you know, in a way.

And that's just the trademark of Independence Day because in the first one we used a lot of American landmarks famously and this time we had the kind of spread...

Interviewer: ... to make it more global

Emmerich: Yes, exactly.

Interviewer: But it's nice, because you kind of see Hong Kong, you've chosen very specific Asian landmarks like you said and it's kind of almost like globalisation, in that sense.

Emmerich: Exactly... it's the true democratic way to make movies.

We think about this a lot. We like Singapore because it has a very unique skyline and you have to stand there to understand.

I travel a lot to Singapore because I go to Thailand. So it was London, Singapore, Phuket.

The other Singapore connection in this sequel to the first Independence Day in 1996, is that it stars Chin Han, a Singaporean actor.

Super excited to officially welcome Chin Han to the cast of #IndependenceDay2 @TheChinHan pic.twitter.com/LMCu5gxJHk

— Roland Emmerich (@rolandemmerich) June 2, 2015

The actor, who has appeared in other Hollywood movies such as The Dark Knight and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, plays the leader of the Chinese Space Squadron.

In other words, he is acting as a pilot from China.

The cast of Independence Day: Resurgence also includes Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum and Liam Hemsworth.

Check out the interview from Channel News Asia:

Related article:

S’pore gets blown up in new Independence Day: Resurgence movie

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