Independence Day sequel in the offing?
Will Smith starred in the original blockbuster back in 1996
With filmmakers fast running out of ideas and original scripts, classics are being rebooted, being remade in 3D format, or worse still, filmmakers are producing substandard sequels to cash in on a franchise if it happens to work at the box office.
And the latter is exactly what is going to happen with Independence Day (1996). If buzz is to believed, possibly one of the most successful and entertaining films of recent times, will get a sequel if Roland Emmerich (the director of the original) gets his way.
In a recent interview to Entertainment Weekly, Emmerich revealed that two scripts have been shortlisted and that James Vanderbilt, the writer of The Amazing Spider-Man and White House Down, is currently doing the rewrites.
“The
humans knew that one day the aliens would come back. And they know that
the only way you can really travel in space is through wormholes. So for the
aliens, it could take two or three weeks, but for us that’s 20 or 25
years….It’s a changed world. It’s like parallel history. Humans have
harnessed all this alien technology. We don’t know how to duplicate it because
it’s organically-grown technology, but we know how to take an antigravity
device and put it in a human airplane,” said Emmerich to Entertainment Weekly.
Rumour has it that actors like Bill Pullman will return but instead of Will Smith, his son Jaden Smith will take over as the lead character.
"It’s still some of the same characters, but also new younger characters; it’s a little bit like the sons take over. The first one ends on a little success, but only enough to give the humans hope. And then in the second one they free themselves again from the aliens," added Emmerich.
Independence Day is the 37th highest grossing of films of all time and is rated as the second greatest summer film of all time, only after Jurassic Park (1993). It also won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1997.