Emmerich Wants Two ID4 Sequels, Fox Says No

Published by Jeff Leins on: November 13th, 2009

While doing press for 2012, director Roland Emmerich has told some outlets this is his last mass-destruction movie, calling it the “mother of all disaster movies.”  However, other press interviewers have asked about the sequel to Independence Day that keeps popping up in the news.

Emmerich doesn’t see the contradiction, instead expanding on his comments a month ago concerning the idea stages for a sequel. In an interview with MTV, the director said, “What we want to do in the next – it’s actually two movies – we want to do a bigger arc. Independence Day was always like the king who leads his troops into battle against an evil force, and that stays like that.” The “we” he’s referring to is likely himself and Dean Devlin, the co-writer of ID4 and producer of several other Emmerich disasters.

The follow-up question was about the name for this epic, which Emmerich sees as being called ID4-ever (part 1 and 2). Of course, that’s likely to change once someone with sense suggests a less lame title.

There is no script at this time, but the IESB got wind of a screenwriter set for the sequel. However, when they contacted Fox for confirmation the studio flatly denied any sequel was currently in development.

The sticking point in previous months have been putting the financial deals in place for Emmerich and especially Will Smith, who wants profit points and likely his production company’s involvement. Fox continues to stall a sequel, and I’m at a loss as to why. The original made $817.4 million in 1996, the fourth largest movie for the studio behind three Star Wars episodes.