Here’s Why They’re Not Doing Back-To-Back ‘Independence Day’ Sequels
Buried in the news of 20th Century Foxfinally greenlighting a sequeltoIndependence Daywas a major change in the release strategy. Onceenvisioned as a trilogy,Roland Emmerichis now only making one sequel, not two like originally planned. There was no reason given for the change and, frankly, it was a tad worrysome as a fan. Was this newIndependence Daynot worthy of a sequel itself?
Well, that’s not the case at all. It’s much more logical than that. In a new interview, series co-creator and producerDean Devlinexplains the reasoning for only making oneIndependence Daysequel. For now.
Devlin spoke toNerd Reportabout theIndependence Daysequels and the thought process behind not going with theback to back planthat had been in the works for years:
We decided just to do one first to make sure that people like where we’re going. If that works well, there’s an ability to do some world building which would be really fun and interesting to do. I think Roland and everybody felt, let’s just make sure 20 years later that people still are interested. I think in our case, we started to feel that maybe we were being a little bit arrogant by assuming that we could do two movies. We said you know what, let’s scale it down. Let’s first make sure that it works for everyone.
That’s actually a pretty refreshing attitude in Hollywood. Especially from a producer of a huge hit movie who is finally getting to make a sequel 20 years later.
Devlin also confirmed they had multiple meetings with Will Smith about returning to the franchise but, ultimately, he didn’t know exactly why Smith turned them down:
I’m not sure of the reasons why Will ultimately decided not to do it. You’d have to ask him. I think he was just at a place where he did seriously consider it. We had a lot of meetings with him, but at the end of the day he decided that doing this wasn’t right for him.
Either way,Independence Day 2,orID Forever, whatever it ends up being called, is scheduled for release August 03, 2025. Roland Emmerich is back to direct and previous reports were thatJeff GoldblumandBill Pullmanwill return. Michael B. Jordanwas also rumored for the film.
For more on what the Independence Day sequel may be about,check out this older article.
