Well here’s a blast from the past… how about some news on a sequel to 1996’s INDEPENDANCE DAY? Apparently the idea has been thrown around for years but nothing solid has come around just yet… but that may change soon.
LatinoReview recently chatted up DAY director Roland Emmerich and couldn’t help ask him about it. But first let’s rewind to 2008, when Fox CEO Tom Rothman said the following: “”We would love to do it, it’s really a matter of Roland, it’s up to Roland. He knows that we’d love to do it. I don’t think there is a script but there have been a lot of ideas, but the truth of the matter is he’s been making other films. He made “Day After Tomorrow” for us, big hit movie, he’s doing “2012” for Sony. But, any day that Roland wanted to do that, we would be very excited to do it because I think, yes, that story definitely can and should continue.”
Alright. So it’s all up to Emmerich huh? Well the director says otherwise. When asked about this proposed sequel Emmerich responded:
“[DAY writer/producer] Dean Devlin and I are still set to make a sequel likely because we’ve found some sort of idea and we approached FOX and FOX has not quite figured out how to incorporate Dean’s and my deal, and Will’s (Smith) deal. Will wants to do it in some sort of a package they can live with. So it’s just been in negations now since forever, and naturally FOX says “Why don’t you do it without Will Smith?” I said Will is essential for us, for this movie and actually for the audience too. And, so, it’s in limbo and lately the studios are fighting. Like gross players, and Will is a gross player and is probably the only gross player right now who’s worth his gross. So we’ll see what happens. I would love to do it. “
So Emmerich is game. But no Will Smith means no INDEPENDANCE DAY 2. Is this really as long a shot as it seems? If Emmerich’s 2012 does well then there’s a good chance interest in ID 2 could peak… but Emmerich already has a flick called FOUNDATION up next. What about Smith? Well word has it he’s toying around with the idea of MEN IN BLACK 3 after HANCOCK 2 so the guy’s in sequel mode… I’m going to go ahead and say this one is entirely feasable… though maybe not for a while. As always we’ll keep an eye out for the rare updates on INDEPENDANCE DAY 2 and will update you all as soon as we hear something!