More INDEPENDENCE DAY Film(s)!? Closer And Closer...

Merrick here...
The notion of an ID4 sequel is nothing new - 'twas bandied about quickly after the first film's high-profile 1996 issuance. Then went away. Then came the "maybe somedays"...then nothing. For a while, ID4 overlords Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin seemed not altogether driven to return for another alien/human smackdown...then we were told they actually had a story in mind but Fox was balking at Will Smith's asking price - recently Emmerich declared that there wouldn't be a sequel without Will (HERE). Now, IESB's sources are saying that The Powes That Be have worked something out with Will Smith...and that one or more INDEPENDENCE DAY sequel movies may be "closer to happening than ever".

IESB has received a tip that Will Smith is now locked for not only Independence Day 2, but also a third installment. The plan would be to shoot both films back-to-back. Whether the studio opts to go the Matrix route and release the two films six months apart or do like the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and split them by a year remains to be seen. According to our sources, if all goes according to plan, the sequel(s) could shoot as early as 2011. This would be Emmerich's next directorial endeavor after his William Shakespeare thriller Anonymous. This would also come after Will Smith's next (which will be either The City That Sailed or Men in Black 3). So this wouldn't interfere with those projects.

...says IESB HERE. Quite a while back, rumors circulated that a proposed ID4 sequel might involve those plundering alien bastards coming back to shoot more green shit at us...but finding our world/technology retrofitted, evolved, and upgraded via all the tech we nabbed from their ships after the first bout. Whether or not this is still the plan...or if it ever was ever a plan at all...remains to be seen. Why sequelize a 14 year old movie? The first one made north of $815 million worldwide. Story potential notwithstanding, that's not too bad an impetus. Since the original film's release, rumors of a possible follow-up to the movie have rolled-in, then receded, like a tide. Repetitively. Endlessly. As such, all of the above may simply be part of the same cycle. We'll see...
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