Roland Emmerich on what he originally intended for Independence Day sequel

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Twenty years after INDEPENDENCE DAY leveled the landmarks of the world, Roland Emmerich will up the destruction with INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE. As if the lengthy wait between installments wasn't clue enough, Emmerich never actually planned to make a sequel as he always considered INDEPENDENCE DAY to be a standalone film. However, over the years, the director realized how iconic the film had become for people and that, along with Twentieth Century Fox repeatedly asking for it, led to him deciding to move forward on the sequel.

The film we're about to get wasn't what Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin initially had in mind however. As Emmerich told Empire, they were hoping to make a movie about peace.

It was after 9/11 and Dean and I wanted to make the movie about peace, and it just didn't work. There's still an element of that in the new one, but that version was only about that. We shoot aliens down accidentally and then at the end of the movie they land on the White House lawn and say "we come in peace" and that was it. It was just too weak an idea and we didn't really want to do it. It didn't have an Independence Day feel. Only the alien ship was destroyed!

As we've seen from the marketing surrounding INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE, we can expect significantly more destruction than that of a single alien vessel in the film. Despite not having any strong feelings towards the original film, I'm strangely excited for the sequel. The cast looks like they're having a blast and no one does global carnage quite like Roland Emmerich. Unlike the first INDEPENDENCE DAY, Emmerich doesn't envision the sequel as a standalone film; when asked about a possible third film in the franchise, Emmerich said "if it's successful enough, yes, because it's set up for a sequel." Perhaps the human race won't come out on top this time around when the credits roll.

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE will hit theaters on July 24, 2016.