It’s been a long time coming. 16 years, in fact. But when news broke of a follow-up to Independence Day, writer and director Roland Emmerich promised a sequel that would explore a parallel history in all three dimensions. Well, it seems his initial vision has grown immensely, after the filmmaker confirmed that he would like to make a series of Independence Day films following ID Forever Parts One & Two.
Speaking at the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex Film Festival (wow, that’s quite a mouthful), here’s what Emmerich and his co-writer Dean Delvin had to say:
“Roland and I would really like to do one,” said Delvin. “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.”
At the conference, the duo also hinted at the return of Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson, though there is still no outright confirmation in terms of casting and plot details are scarce, too. In saying that, Emmerich then elaborated on the preliminary story concept for ID Forever, which was revealed a few months ago – The aliens travel to earth 20 years after the events of the first film to seek revenge. Hey, space commuting is a bitch, right?
“That’s actually what we talked a lot about. 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.”
Based on his statement, it seems Emmerich isn’t exactly short of ideas on how to take the franchise forward. It’ll be interesting, though, considering that ID Forever Part One will be the first sequel for which he’s taken up the reins and given the space-traversing story titbits teased above, the Independence Day franchise will be nothing if not ambitious.
An entire series of movies? Now that’s what I call a close encounter. But what are your thoughts on Emmerich and Delvin’s quotes? Should they happen; will the films following ID Forever Parts One & Two be mere overkill? Give us your opinion below.