Is Independence Day 2 Bringing Back This Fan Favorite Character?
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We’re living in a world that has toyed with the concept of an Independence Day sequel for almost as many years as the first film has been out. The project finally got the official green light from Fox last month, and now we can really get down to the speculative nitty gritty, which kicks off with this potentially cryptic tweet from director Roland Emmerich himself.
"Ha-ha-ha! Hello, boys! I'm BAAAAAACK!"
#IndependenceDay pic.twitter.com/I9XOAiLAXi
— Roland Emmerich (@rolandemmerich) December 29, 2014
What the what? Of all the callbacks and references you could make about this movie without raising eyebrows, showcasing Randy Quaid’s presumably dead pilot Russell Casse, and his hollered-out final words, is a tad odd. Especially when some of those words are, “I’m baaaack!”
In the film, Quaid just kind of yells this out at the alien mothership that he flies his plane into—because that’s how movie characters do things—and the entire craft exploded in one of the cooler special effects pieces in the flick. But is it possible Emmerich is trying to tell us something here? It’d be one thing if this were an actual July 4th post, or if he’d posted several other Independence Day messages surrounding it. But it’s intriguing that he chose this one, and so soon after the film officially started moving forward.
Of course, even if Quaid’s character somehow miraculously survived the first film (perhaps through magical alien blood transfusions) and is currently a part of the story, there has been a long string of screenplays in the past few years, written by Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin, with James Vanderbilt currently attached as the official screenwriter. If he’s there, it’s entirely possible Russell could get written out of it before audiences know any better. Hollywood is difficult to grasp sometimes. And sometimes I’d like to hop in a plane and just…
Quaid has been in quite a bit of trouble recently, as he and his wife’s U.S. passports were revoked after the couple ran up a $10,000 hotel bill then left without paying. They’ve been in Canada for a while now, trying to appeal their situation, but it’s hard to say where that’ll go. Maybe the flick will film partly in Vancouver.
As far as what we actually do know about Independence Day 2, Jeff Goldblum said there’s a part for him, though no actors have signed on just yet. And we know that the sequel is currently set for a June 24, 2016 release, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the original.
Do you guys think that Randy Quaid is coming back? Should he?
