What a difference a few years make. In 2008, 20th Century Fox only had two films cross the $100 million dollar mark. Now the studio is basking in the glow of Avatar‘s monumental take. The film made so much money that Fox co-chairman had no hesitation in greenlighting a sequel. And while Fox has a sequel (reboot?) of Predators coming this year and is working to bring a new Alien to the big screen, there’s one “event” picture that is likely to get a sequel.
Independence Day.
There was talk a few years ago about a sequel, but director Ronald Emmerich and producer/writing partner Dean Devlin weren’t ready to see aliens destroy the world just yet.
Now that Mother Nature has had her fun (The Day After Tomorrow and 2012) it looks like the duo is ready to make a sequel to the hit film of 1996. Emmerich had recently told Latino Review that Fox was unwilling to re-up with Will Smith for a sequel, since the actor gets both $20 million up and first dollar gross. But with the success of Avatar it seems that Fox is willing to open the bank.
Consider this strictly a rumor at this point but IESB got a tip that Will Smith is now locked for not only Independence Day 2, but also a third installment. Emmerich would shoot both films back to back just as Robert Zemeckis did with Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III, the Wachowskis did with The Matrix sequels and Bruckheimer did with the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.
According to the site’s sources, if all goes according to plan, the sequel(s) could shoot as early as 2011.
The Pulse: Bad Boys may have put Will Smith on the map as an action star, but it was ID4 that propelled him to A-list status. I still remember seeing the first teaser and it was like “holy shit”! That film raked in a total of $817,400,891 worldwide. Last year, 2012 made an astronomical $600 million overseas and that was a bad movie with spectacular special effects. I could see Will Smith steering a sequel to Independence Day to earnings of a billion overseas easy.
Considering that Avatar was pro ecology and anti-government, I wonder if the sequel to ID4 will have a new man as president and be someone who will want to make peace with the aliens by bowing as well as kissing any trinkets that hang from their squid-like appendages.
