Some potentially good news for fans of the original ‘Independence Day’ movie! The followup to Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster hit ‘Independence Day’ just hired a new screenwriter!
Carter Blanchard was brought in to write a sequel sans Will Smith. Apparently the other script written by Emmerich, Dean Devlin, and James Vanderbilt had been scribed with the hopes that Smith would be returning. Personally, I like Will Smith. I loved his character in the film and I’m more than a little disappointed to learn that he is out. (As least Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum will be back!)
To be honest, I’m really just grateful we even get the chance at a followup. I mean it was way back in… wait for it, 1996 that the original film decimated the White House along with so many other famous landmarks.
Last year, Emmerich revealed that the sequel would take place roughly 20 years after the original and will pick up with the alien armada responding to the distress call from their comrades all those years ago.
“The humans knew that one day the aliens would come back. And they know that the only way you can really travel in space is through wormholes. So for the aliens, it could take two or three weeks, but for us that’s 20 or 25 years…. It’s a changed world. It’s like parallel history. [Humans] have harnessed all this alien technology. We don’t know how to duplicate it because it’s organically-grown technology, but we know how to take an antigravity device and put it in a human airplane.”
Whether or not this is still the plan in unknown. According to Variety, a treatment submitted by James Vanderbilt is what Blanchard will base his script on. Is this the same treatment from last year? Who knows but most likely, Blanchard will take some liberties with it, but we may never know how much of the original treatment remains in the final draft.
Obviously, a completely new cast will allow a great deal of freedom for the writer and director. There are many different directions the film can take. Will it be post invasion? Or will they opt for a prequel, which will, no doubt, have to be very toned down from the scope and scale of the original.
What do you hope?
‘Independence Day 2’ is slated to invade theaters in July, 2016
