Way back in 1996 there was this little alien invasion movie starring Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, and Will Smith. You may have heard about it, anyway back then Will Smith was still the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and hadn’t yet become the cocky $50 million dollar a movie primadonna he now is.
Fast forward 15 years and it looks like someone over at 20th Century Fox has decided that the summer blockbuster, “Independence Day” needs a couple of sequels. Director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin are more than happy to oblige. Emmerich and Devlin are putting the finishing touches on a pair of screenplays for Independence Day 2 & 3. They claim that they’ll be ready for 20th Century Fox by early to mid-December.
The back-to-back films are being written to work as standalone films, but threading together a single narrative. “They’re intended to be fulfilling movies onto themselves. You could see each separately and enjoy them, but they tell one big story,” says an anonymous source.
Apparently Fox has been trying to get this project going for a while but the outrageous salary demands of Smith and Emmerich have been a stalemate in the process. The source said, “The delay wasn’t about whether they both wanted to make the movie. It had more to do with “Whose dick is bigger?”
This isn’t the first time the studio has attempted to get a sequel going years back Dean Devlin who co-wrote the original “Independence Day” with director Roland Emmerich actually returned his paycheck after making an initial pass at the sequel because it wasn’t up to his standards.
“Ten years ago I was hired to write a sequel to ‘Independence Day’ and they paid me a lot of money,” Devlin said. “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.”
Devlin tabled the “Independence Day” sequel for almost eight years after that, but was called back to action by Emmerich about 18 months ago. The results were decidedly better.
“I feel like we got it,”. “I think it took a long time, but I feel like we finally got something that really feels like, ‘That’s worth seeing as a sequel to ‘Independence Day.'”
Of course, being worthy and actually happening are two different things entirely; even Devlin admits he isn’t sure if “Independence Day 2” will ever get off the ground.
For its part, Fox is hoping to make it work. The first “Independence Day” was a massive phenomenon, grossing $817 million worldwide in an era before 3D surcharges, IMAX popularity and Will Smith’s mega-stardom. “Independence Day” helped make the Fresh Prince one of the biggest stars in the world, a title he still holds as evidenced from the $619 million worldwide gross of “Men In Black 3.”
Fox claims that they are willing to go ahead with the sequels with or without Smith, and they also say that Bill Pullman (who I’m sure was expecting big things from the “Casper” franchise) is ready to reprise his role of Thomas Whitmore.
Personally all I wanna know is what kind of involvment will Jeff Goldblum have in these films because without Goldblum these films are pointless.
[youtube id=”BGdoqBxqZuw” width=”620″ height=”360″]
0 comments