The Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth is being courted by 20th Century Fox to lead their Independence Day sequel, ID Forever. The Wrap broke the news earlier today, which is currently running without verification from Fox, with details stemming from more than one of their trusted sources.
Should Hemsworth broker a deal to star in the long-awaited sequel, he may also be joined by Fantastic Four‘s Michael B. Jordan, whose name was previously linked to the movie. Both actors are hitting their stride at the moment – Jordan in particular- so this could be Hemsworth’s time to shine in the spotlight… while greasing a few extraterrestrials.
At this current stage in development, these are the only new casting names connected to the alien invasion follow-up. Previous chatter has definitively ruled out any possibility of Will Smith returning as the cocksure pilot, but his two co-stars from the 1996 flick, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman, have expressed an interest in reprising their roles.
Elsewhere on the cast and crew front, Independence Day director Roland Emmerich is back to call the shots and produce along with original producer Dean Devlin. Initially, Emmerich had split the long-awaited sequel into two parts, before sewing them back into one. This was back in 2013 when the helmer let slip a glut of story details on the film, suggesting it would pick up twenty years after the events of the first. However, two years have passed since he offered that update, and as we’ve witnessed a spate of changes to the the sequel’s format and casting, we expect the story has evolved somewhat.
Production on the Independence Day sequel will commence in May, with a release date locked in for June 24th 2016. That means ID Forever will be invading multiplexes exactly twenty years after the first encounter.