Hasn’t the White House suffered enough at the hands of Roland Emmerich? He destroyed it in Independence Day and damaged it again in 2012. So you would think he’d had enough of troubling one of the most famous addresses in the world. But no, now he’s in talks to direct the hot action drama spec script White House Down.

Sony picked up the title last week from Amazing Spider-Man writer James Vanderbilt. After shoving a piece of paper with $3 million written on it across a negotiating table in a winning bid, the studio quickly began to lock in a director.

Emmerich certainly knows how to orchestrate action, even if his tastes tend towards the mega-destructive side rather than the more focused beats of something that has been described as Die Hard Meets Air Force One. The plot details are currently still being kept secret but, let’s be honest, you can probably figure out most of it from the references. From the sounds of it, Emmerich is all but locked in, and expects to be shooting the movie in the autumn. Pyrotechnic and CG teams are already rubbing their hands together in glee.

Vanderbilt is in demand at the moment. He’s developing a Spider-Man sequel and has been working on Sony’s adaptation of Red Riding. And he’s also polishing the Robocop script for Jose Padilha.