Bill Pullman Talks Independence Day Sequels

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

ID4Whitehouse

Are you one of those people who always wondered what happens after the end of Roland Emmerich’s alien invasion flick, Independence Day? Sure, they beat the aliens, using their Mac-compatible software, but much of the world is left in ruins, so there’s a lot of work to do and many stories to tell. Apparently things are moving forward on not one, but two sequels, and star Bill Pullman is totally on board.

You may remember that Pullman played the President of the United States, a role he’s reprising in the upcoming sitcom, 1600 Penn. While he sat down with Crave Online to pump his new career opportunity, he also let slip what, and when, we can expect from future Independence Day movies.

We could see movement on these films—which Emmerich has said before will be called ID Forever-Part 1 and ID Forever-Part 2—sooner rather than later. Pullman said:

Within a year, yeah, something like that I guess…I worried about taking this part because it’s heating up. I thought, ‘I don’t know if I should do the comedy’ and I talked to Dean [Devlin] and Roland [Emmerich] and they said, “No, do it. We’ll work around it. If it goes, we’ll work around it.”

So that’s one big piece of the Independence Day puzzle in place, but there are at least two others out there for our consideration. First is Jeff Goldblum, but Pullman didn’t make mention of him (my theory is that it’s because the two were rivals on-screen and Pullman still holds a grudge, but I’m probably wrong). Secondly, what about Will Smith? Will the Fresh Prince be back for another round with the alien invaders?

The Will Smith part of it may be ongoing but I think there’s strategies for both. I like what I have to do in both of them. I’m not in an old age home in a wheelchair being wheeled out for one more moment. It’s a very interesting conception of what happens to Whitmore between then and when it picks back up.

Though Smith’s participation remains up in the air—he’s busy being the biggest movie star in the world, after all—but we know from his history that he’s not afraid to come back to a big-time franchise.

Even with all of this talk, Pullman isn’t 100% sold that the Independence Day sequels, even if they start development, will ever see the light of day. He’s been burned by such talk before, and concluded, “Nobody’s holding their breath because it’s been continually plagued.”