Some good news came up on the ‘Independence Day’ front recently when it was revealed that Will Smith could still be a part of the upcoming sequels from Roland Emmerich. No word yet on if Captain Steve Hiller will return for one or both of the planned films, but we do have some new details about the first sequel from the director himself.

During an appearance on a recent podcast with Empire Online, Emmerich shared some of his plans for his follow-up to the 1996 film that’s coming in the summer of 2015. First, he announced that ‘Independence Day 2’ (or ‘ID Forever: Part One’) would be his next film if he gets the script right. By the sounds of the rest of the interview, he’s pretty close to that point, especially since there is a release date already.

Then, he goes into the topic of the other planned sequel, ‘ID Forever: Part Two’. The filmmaker says that, while it is in the cards, he won’t go on with the third film if the fans don’t want it:

“We’ll only do the first part because we want to have the audience decide if they want to see the second, otherwise it feels arrogant. But I’m pretty confident, with the right script…”

Finally, he goes into where the idea for the films came from. It appears that, like many films that we’ve gotten in the past few years, he was inspired by the end of the world:

“The idea for it came out of 2012 and what you can do with technology these days. It’s a parallel history. Humans rebuild whatever they have – bigger, newer, shinier – and then they forget. Maybe, 20 years later, [the aliens are] never coming back. They won’t fall for that again.

We’ve created a mythology around these aliens, which is really cool. You have to create a mythology because people want to see a bigger picture.”

For the whole podcast, where Emmerich also talks about other projects on his slate such as ‘Singularity’, ‘Foundation’, and ‘Asteroids’, check out the audio below:

What do you think about ‘Independence Day 2’ (or whatever it’s going to be called)? Are you more excited after hearing the latest update on it from Roland Emmerich? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

‘Independence Day 2’ is currently scheduled to be released on July 3, 2015.