Now that INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE is prepped to invade theaters, director Roland Emmerich has spilled the beans about the sequel that might have been, way back when. While the original 1996 film was never intended to have a sequel (clearly), in the post-9/11 world they were working on hammering out a concept.
It was after 9/11 and [producer] Dean [Devlin] 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!
Well, the destruction certainly isn't lacking, according to the RESURGENCE trailer, so it looked like he pulled himself right back on to the Emmerich track. But could you imagine? A delicate, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS-esque, INDEPENDENCE DAY that deals with the political fallout of 9/11? That could have been a fascinating production. Alas.
You can check out INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE, starring Bill Pullman, Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Vivica A. Fox, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner, Charlotte Gainsbourg,J oey King, Maika Monroe, Sela Ward, DeObia Oparei, William Fichtner, and Jessie Usher on June 24th.