In a back and forth game of will he or won’t he, we finally have official word that Will Smith (‘After Earth‘, ‘Men In Black III’) will not be rejoining any of the original cast for the filming of ‘Indepdendence Day 2‘. Unfortunately that means we will not be seeing a return of Captain Steven Hiller to be blowing any other aliens out of the sky though I hope that they at least make a reference of him in the film.
His lack of return shouldn’t stall the film’s progress at all as previously director Roland Emmerich (‘The Day After Tomorrow’, ‘2012’) and co-writer Dean Devlin (‘Stargate’, ‘Universal Soldier’) had admited that two scripts were being prepared for the sequel. One script had Will Smith as the lead star and the second was there in case he decided to not sign on. It looks like we now know which of the two they will be using.
While this isn’t officially set in stone at this point (he’s been going back and forth so far and hasn’t had the final conversation with Emmerich) it’s sad to know that we won’t be seeing Smith return to the role that could be thought of as the one that launched his movie career. With an official release date 20 years after the initial movie’s release and a script that they’ve been working on for quite some time, this isn’t sounding to just be a quick cash grab. Smith, though, seems to be tired of his old roles as the rumor is he is also not rejoining the cast of the next ‘Men In Black’ film when it starts production.
What are your thoughts? Will it be worth seeing a sequel to ‘Independence Day’ without Smith? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Deadline
