Roland Emmerich seems to have regrets about Independence Day: Resurgence

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Sure, INDEPENDENCE DAY is far from the best film in the world, but it's also a hell of a lot of fun with its crazy action, spectacular visual effects, and charismatic performances from Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, and more. Twenty years later, Roland Emmerich returned to give us INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE, a sequel which may have thrown bigger and crazier visual effects at the screen, but was lacking much of what made the first film so special.

Although the film went out of its way to set up a third sequel, INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE was a critical and box-office disappointment which laid to rest any hopes Roland Emmerich had for a follow-up. While speaking with Yahoo! about MIDWAY, his upcoming World War II film, Emmerich seems to have some regrets regarding making the sequel in the first place.

Well, that was a little bit more complicated because I just wanted to make a movie exactly like the first, but then in the middle of production Will (Smith) opted out because he wanted to do Suicide Squad. I should have stopped making the movie because we had a much better script. After I had to, really fast, cobble another script together. And I should have just said “no,” because all of a sudden I was making something I criticized myself, a sequel. Life sometimes happens a certain way .. .but I’ve always been into American movies and I never could understand anything else.

Moving forward on the INDEPENDENCE DAY sequel without Will Smith always struck me as a strange move, but I guess we'll never known whether or not it would have been any more successful with Smith's involvement. In case you've forgotten about what happened with Will Smith's character in the sequel, and I certainly wouldn't blame you, INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE revealed that Steven Hiller (Smith) had died in an accident while piloting an experimental alien hybrid aircraft for Earth Space Defense. Yep. Roland Emmerich's next film, MIDWAY, is slated to hit theaters on November 8th.