independence-day-resurgence

WARNING! Some spoilers lie ahead for ‘Independence Day: Resurgence,’ so read through at your own risk!

After 20 years out of the cinemas, the ‘Independence Day’ franchise is back with an extraterrestrial bang!  While ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ didn’t score a nostalgic coup with audiences quite as well as last year’s ‘Jurassic World’ did, the door certainly seems to be open to the franchise for additional opportunities at follow-up films.

Roland Emmerich, director of both ID4 films – as well as the helmer behind such other big-screen disaster flicks as ‘The Day After Tomorrow,’ ‘2012,’ White House Down,’ and ‘Godzilla’ (1998) – is already thinking ahead to the next move that the film franchise might make.  If you’ve seen ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ already, then you likely know why: at the film’s conclusion, a benign alien presence asks the human race to lead its resistance fight against the “harvester” aliens that have been attacking other planets in the galaxy along with Earth.

Emmerich, for his part, is ready to extend the series directly, without the lengthy wait that audiences occurred between the first two films.  Said the director recently in an interview with Empire:

“The next one will be an intergalactic journey.  It’ll be [set] maybe a year or two later, not 20 years [later]. I want to maintain this group of people, especially the young characters, and Jeff [Goldblum] and Brent [Spiner] will take part in it. It’ll be fun to keep that group together.  Will I definitely direct [the third film]? Oh yes. I’d never, ever let someone else do it.”

With ‘Resurgence’ making only $41 million in domestic box office on its opening weekend (the film was budgeted at an estimated $165 million), there are no guarantees for a third film to be green-lit, of course.  If it does happen, though, rest assured that Emmerich and company are ready, as he went on to elaborate on how the human race will move to join the intergalactic fight:

“I imagine them now going in one of these ships they’ve rebuilt into a wormhole.  I think it’ll be the classic of ‘going into space’ but it has to be about Earth, and we have a really good idea for that.”

‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ is currently out in US theaters.


If Tony Schaab had unlimited funds and Hollywood connections, the first film he’d make would absolutely be ‘Plan 10 from Outer Space.’  A lover of most things sci-fi and horror, Tony is an author by day and a DJ by night. Come hang out with Tony on Facebook and Twitter to hear him spew semi-funny nonsense and get your opportunity to finally put him in his place.