海角大神

It鈥檚 taken 17 years, but Fox has at last dated Independence Day 2 to hit theaters during (when else?) the Fourth of July holiday frame in 2015. The sequel will pick up in real-time, some twenty years after the first movie. However, co-writers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich (the latter is returning to direct) have revealed that ID4-2 takes place in an alternate present-day reality, where humanity has spent the last two decades harvesting the alien technology featured in the first movie.

Cast-wise, Independence Day 2 is expected to bring back characters from the first film 鈥� like former U.S. president Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) and MIT graduate-turned cable repairman Dave Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) 鈥� but Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) won鈥檛 be among them. Similarly, the cast will be half new characters, some of whom may become more prominently featured in a third installment (assuming the first sequel is a satisfactory box office hit).

Devlin and Emmerich had mapped out the听滨顿4 sequel as a two-part narrative arch, under the working title ID Forever Part I & II. The latter has informed Collider that 鈥淚 think [Fox]聽decided to only do one first鈥� for the time being, and has set聽James Vanderbilt (the writer for Emmerich鈥檚聽White House Down) to polish off the script.

That鈥檚 understandable, given that Emmerich鈥檚 disaster blockbuster formula isn鈥檛 so fresh nowadays (following ID4,听The Day After Tomorrow and 2012), and the self-contained nature of听滨顿4 gives all the more reason to wonder if demand for a sequel is so high after many years. Not to mention,听the number of alien films聽released in recent years 鈥� a handful of which proved to be mediocre or worse 鈥� make it harder to get enthused about yet another blockbuster that feature extraterrestrials in an apocalyptic scenario (the end-of-the-world sub-genre is, likewise, starting to feel over-saturated at this point).

As for Smith鈥檚 lack of involvement, Emmerich told the NY Daily News:

鈥淲ill Smith can not come back because he鈥檚 too expensive, but he鈥檇 also be too much of a marquee name. It would be too much.聽We have like maybe half of the people that you know would know from the first film (in the script) and the other half people who are new.鈥�

What鈥檚 funny is that Smith has made it known that he doesn鈥檛 want to turn into 鈥渢he sequel guy,鈥� and yet many of his oft-rumored upcoming projects are followups to his previous tentpole successes (Bad Boys 3, Hancock 2, I Am Legend 2, etc.). While M. Night Shyamalan鈥檚 After Earth 鈥� which stars Will and his son Jaden 鈥� has performed below expectations, the sci-fi film has still managed to take in $172 million worldwide; meaning, the ex-Fresh Prince鈥檚 ability to get projects green-lit probably won鈥檛 take that big a hit (and it won鈥檛 change his mind about not becoming the go-to guy for sequels).

Sandy Schaefer blogs at Screen Rant.