Director Roland Emmerich talks Independence Day sequel and other future projects

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Roland Emmerich is going to be very busy for the next few years with his sequel to INDEPENDENCE DAY and the recently announced reboot for STARGATE. But those aren't the only projects the director has been looking at, and in a new interview with Empire, Emmerich talks about what he might have lined up for the future, as well as some nuggets of information on the INDEPENDENCE DAY sequel.

Roland Emmerich says that the studio may have announced a release date for INDEPENDENCE DAY 2, but that doesn't mean he's ready to start filming tomorrow, although it will be his next film if he can get the script right:

"You have to set a release date otherwise another film moves into it. [But] Independence Day is my next movie, if I get the right script. I should get the script pretty soon, then I'll try to get it into good shape for one or two months, and if that happens, we'll announce it and start production."

Emmerich goes on to say that he'll only be filming one sequel for now, and then possibly do a third movie.

We'll only do the first part," he says, "because we want to have the audience decide if they want to see the second, otherwise it feels arrogant. But I'm pretty confident, with the right script…"

The director also talks about what to expect in the sequel:

"The idea for it came out of 2012," Emmerich enthuses of the likely carnage, "and what you can do with technology these days." And the setting? "It's a parallel history," he explained. "Humans rebuild whatever they have – bigger, newer, shinier – and then they forget. Maybe, 20 years later, [the aliens are] never coming back…" "We've created a mythology around these aliens," says Emmerich, "which is really cool. You have to create a mythology because people want to see a bigger picture."
 

Both comments are similar to previous ones made by the director on INDEPENDENCE DAY 2, and for those of you who were wondering if the aliens have updated their anti-virus software since the last film, Emmerich says "They won't fall for that again."

Roland Emmerich doesn't just have aliens on the mind though: he's also developing a sci-fi film called SINGULARITY, but unfortunately there aren't that many details about the project and Emmerich doesn't share much:

That is on very, very good grounds again. We just overdid its complexity, we packed too much in it, but we lost two or three subplots and suddenly realized, 'Oh my God, this works!' I definitely want to make this movie.

Emmerich also was planning on directing an adaptation of Issac Asimov's Foundation (as a mini-series) and the video game Asteroids, but it doesn't look like there's been much movement on either project, and it's doubtful that if they do happen, Emmerich will still be attached to them:

FOUNTAIN:

"We're trying to do it as a big mini-series, but even there you would have to change the story itself and set it in a time when the galaxy has fallen apart – and then you're pretty much making a TV show with all these characters and playing all the scenes out. You can [do that] and we'll see what happens. We tried so hard [to make it into a movie], honestly, because it's one of my most favorite books. I just love it."

ASTEROIDS:

"[Producer] Lorenzo di Bonaventura offered it to me first and it had exactly what I like – a two brothers story that was very interesting for me – but I had so many other projects and they didn't want to wait around for me."

Even without ASTEROIDS and FOUNTAIN on his plate Roland Emmerich has plenty of projects to work on, but I think the one most people want to see is the sequel to INDEPENDENCE DAY. Hopefully it will be his next film and if he does get the script right, the film is scheduled to be released on July 3rd, 2015.