Roland Emmerich And Dean Devlin Talk About The Independence Day Sequel
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A sequel to Roland Emmerich’s summer blockbuster Independence Day has been in the works since the film’s release in 1996. Emmerich and his producing/writing partner Dean Devlin have often talked about their plans for the sequel, which has the current working title of ID: Forever. It’s always been a question of bringing the original cast back for a sequel film, including Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Pullman.
During a screening of Independence Day at the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex Film Festival, Emmerich and Devlin were joined by Jeff Goldblum to talk about making the 1996 film, and what they’d like to see in a sequel film. Emmerich and Devlin indicated their continued interest in making ID: Forever happen. Devlin said, “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.”
A few months ago, Roland Emmerich explained what could be in store for audiences if/when an Independence Day sequel is finally made. He said the sequel film would take place 20 years after the events of the original, when the aliens would return to Earth to seek revenge. In fact, the aliens would have traveled through a wormhole, so their voyage back to Earth only took seconds for them, but for the people of Earth, over 20 years had past.
After the events of the original Independence Day, the U.S. military has upgraded their weaponry with alien technology, so they’d be ready if the aliens ever returned. The sequel would follow Captain Steven Hiller’s (Will Smith) stepson Dylan (Ross Bagley), who would be 20 years older since the last time we saw him in the first film. Emmerich added some more insights into the sequel’s story and themes:
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 overcoming 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.
