Roland Emmerich shared some details on the INDEPENDENCE DAY sequels back in March, with the director revealing that the films will be set 20 years after the first one and some of the plot may involve humans trying to use alien technology. The scripts for the sequels were written Emmerich and Dean Devlin and the two of them attended a screening of INDEPENDENCE DAY in California recently, where they talked a little bit more about the new films.
Devlin (who also co-wrote the original) was asked what the latest news was on the sequels:
Roland and I would really like to do one. We have some pretty darn good ideas on how to do one and, hopefully, that will all come together. A lot of things have to align. The planets have to piece together and if they do, it’ll happen.
Roland Emmerich went on to talk about the differences between the alien race and humans and how building a bigger mythology is important for the next films and beyond.
That’s actually what we talked a lot about. The mythology of why did the aliens come in the first place, what is the bigger story of this whole thing? And we talked a lot about swarm intelligence. And [the humans] are individual intelligence. Even though we kill each other and have wars against each other, we have something special. We have this domino human spirit to believe in good and over coming enemies. And it’s a little bit about that and when you get a bigger mythology going, I think then you have the chance to do not only one or two or three but you can create a series and that’s what we want to do.
Jeff Goldblum was also at the special screening and when asked if computer expert David Levinson might appear in the sequels, both Devlin and Emmerich confirmed that there is indeed a place for Goldblum in the sequels, if he wanted to return.
While I don't think the world necessarily needs new INDEPENDENCE DAY movies I am interested in seeing how these films turn out, if this actually happens. It sounds like Roland Emmerich wants to turn ID4 into a big franchise with the sequels but has too much time passed? And even if Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman return will people still want to see the films if Will Smith isn't in them?
Roland Emmerich's latest film WHITE HOUSE DOWN is out June 28th, 2014.