Ahhh Independence Day… This was a super-duper mega blockbuster that cracked the nineties wide open. I just recently checked it out again and stood, well sat, okay lied down barely consciousness amazed how I could possibly find this movie phenomenally good when it actually sucked big time. Story was ridiculous, characters larger than life and unconvincing… The only thing that was good were, for that time, unbelievable special effects. However, ID has a soul, it’s like it exists in a different reality where you can have all this craziness. It’s just our guilty pleasure.
Now about the sequel: first of all, after a huge success of Independence Day, its writer Dean Devlin was payed a huge sum to write a sequel. Unfortunately, after finishing it he realized that it’s quite messy and unworthy of its original, so he gave the money back. Now 15 years later, he and Roland Emerich have finally figured out a story that can be a true successor to the one of the most popular alien invasion flicks. The first idea was to create a two-part sequel called ID Forever, but it seems that Roland and Dean gave up on this and are going just for a regular sequel.
The details of the story are unclear at this moment, as well as the cast. However, one thing was leaked: there are two versions of the script, one with and one without Will Smith. Jeff Goldblum is set to reprise his role as David Levinson and the rest of the cast seems pretty buyable :) The main question is: Will this film work without Will? We don’t know why Will is not confirmed, but two things come to mind: Jaden and money. After Earth was a fiasco and it’s clear now that Jaden has a hard road in front of him, acting-wise, so to see him in ID 2 would be disastrous and the producers know it. 50 million dollars is the rumored sum that Will is asking. These are all rumors and should be treated as such.
Independence Day 2 is set for release on 24 June 2016.
P.S. Do you remember the ending of Independence Day? The destruction of USA, nuking of Houston and other fun stuff is going to create one hell of a setting. If they decide to do a straight up sequel, what do you think?