Source: ComingSoon.net | NY Daily News | Entertainment Weekly
Earlier this week, the announcement came from 20th Century Fox that the studio plans to release the long-rumored (and long-awaited, perhaps?) sequel to Roland Emmerich’s 1996 blockbuster Independence Day on July 3, 2015. Now, more details have emerged discussing the script and possible returning cast members, but the story surprisingly leaves out Will Smith’s character from the first film. Read on for more!
While promoting his latest film, White House Down, director Roland Emmerich said (via NY Daily News):
“Will Smith can not come back because he’s too expensive, but he’d also be too much of a marquee name. It would be too much. We have like maybe half of the people that you know would know from the first film (in the script) and the other half people who are new.”
While it does make sense that it would indeed be quite expensive to hire Will Smith for the sequel, it is difficult to believe he’d be “too much of a marquee name,” at least for this film. Smith is probably the biggest reason why so many people loved the original Independence Day, so people would automatically expect him to return, and would want him to. One would think that the studio would do everything they could to get him back for another round, and make sacrifices with other parts of the script rather than Smith’s.
We do know, however, that the script features the stepson of Smith’s character from the first film, although actor Ross Bagley, now 24, has not been confirmed to reprise the role. Actor Bill Pullman has also confirmed that his character is expected to return, and that the actor should be able to play President Thomas J. Whitmore once again (although we can be sure that he will not be sitting in the Oval Office during the time period of the sequel). No other characters have been confirmed to return as of yet.
The original plan was to shoot two sequels, which, up until now have been known as ID Forever: Part I and ID Forever: Part II. However, the release date announcement from earlier this week refers to only one sequel, simply calling it Independence Day 2, and does not mention anything about a second sequel. Did the writers and Emmerich finally realize that the titles they had for the sequels were in fact (yes, fact) terrible, and made the call to change them? Will we still be getting that second sequel, or did the idea get scrapped when White House Down writer/producer James Vanderbilt did the rewrite on the scripts? Details are sketchy at this point.
For more on the plot of the film (or films), check out Entertainment Weekly‘s interview they did with Roland Emmerich back in March.
Update: Roland Emmerich has confirmed (via Collider) that 20th Century Fox only wants to focus on one sequel, at least for the time being, probably to see how well it performs.
