A sequel to INDEPENDENCE DAY is looking increasingly likely, which is either something you’re nostalgically pumped for or something that makes you groan in annoyance about as loudly as an orgasming cave troll. As I made clear a few weeks ago, I’m in the latter camp.
But for those who want the thing, and more power to you if you do, here’s what co-writer Dean Devlin had to say about just how possible such a sequel might actually be: “I hope so… I can’t say that it’s going to happen, but I can say for the first time that for the first time in eleven years, Roland Emmerich are working together. There are a lot of moving pieces that are coming together. I don’t know if it will come together, but we want it to happen. This is the first time since we made the originals that Roland and I are excited about doing it and feeling like we have the right idea and we have our fingers crossed.”
And here’s what he had to say in response to the question of just how much pressure he and co-writer/director Roland Emmerich were/have been under to do a sequel: “We felt enormous pressure… Over the years everyone has always asked us about it. We never wanted to do it unless it felt germane to the story. In fact, ten years ago I was hired to write a sequel to ‘Independence Day’ and they paid me a lot of money. After I finished the script, I gave the money back and I said, ‘Don’t even read the script. The script is okay, but we can’t make an okay sequel to ‘Independence Day.’ This is what gave me a career. The fans deserve better than this. And I really decided then that I was never going to do a sequel. Until about a year and a half ago when Roland called me up and said, ‘Let’s try again.’ So we went out to Palm Springs and we cracked it. We said, ‘That’s a real sequel. That’s a sequel that makes sense to do. That’s a sequel that won’t disappoint the fans. That one feels like we always intended to do that in the first place.’ So I want it to happen. I don’t know if it will.”
So the point of all that is: Devlin isn’t sure, but he and Emmerich now have a story and there’s no reason why a studio wouldn’t fund a surefire hit of this magnitude. More as it (surely) comes.
Vivica A. Fox is, because it’s the most applicable word imaginable, most definitely foxy.