Credit: DC/Warner Bros.There’s no denying that Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996) is a certified classic. Its sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), on the other hand, gives new meaning to the term “disaster movie.”
Some might say Will Smith dodged a bullet by passing up on the opportunity to reprise his role as Captain Steven Hiller in the 2016 sequel. Others might argue that having him on board would have made it better. Either way, the critically-panned film hardly wowed the box office, beaming up only $389.7 million worldwide against its $165 million budget.
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But were we really surprised? If there’s one blockbuster that was “un-sequel-izable,” as Smith once said in an interview in the late ’90s, it was Independence Day.
The epic alien invasion flick pits its characters and the viewers in a relatable, grounded version of reality, and one of the most terrifying things about the film is its sense of possibility. That’s not to say the film isn’t outlandish in any way, but sequences such as Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum (David Levinson) venturing into space to take the fight to the aliens aboard their Mother Ship is all part of the film’s charming sense of adventure.
Resurgence is another matter entirely. Not only does it lack the gravitas and shock value of its predecessor, but it looks entirely fake and is played mainly for jokes. The only returning character who appears to be taking things seriously is President Thomas J Whitmore (Bill Pullman), who has visions of the aliens returning to Earth.
If only we’d had the same foresight. Of all the returning actors — Jeff Goldblum (David Levinson), Bill Pullman (Thomas J Whitmore), Vivica A Fox (Jasmine Dubrow), Brent Spiner (Dr. Brackish Okun), and Judd Hirsch (Julius Levinson) — Smith was the only one who saw sense. Although with that said, he did turn the film down so that he could star in DC’s Suicide Squad (2016), which faired no better, critically or financially.
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In an interview with BBC Radio 1Extra in 2016, Smith talked about the decision not to star in the Independence Day sequel, saying:
“It was one of those things — I had a couple of films lined up, I had Concussion and Suicide Squad, and so it was a decision, timing-wise, between Independence Day and Suicide Squad. They were sending pictures from the set, and I was like, ahh. The world is in a place of nostalgia right now… Specifically in entertainment, there’s such a pull for nostalgia, so it was just the perfect opportunity, and it didn’t work out.”
In a recent interview with the A.V. Club, Vivica A. Fox, who plays Smith’s on-screen partner, Jasmine Dubrow, in the films, said she feels the film “missed out” by not having Will Smith:
“I really feel we missed out by not bringing Will Smith back. We had most of the original cast, but I think the one true link that was missing to the success of Independence Day 2 was that Will Smith wasn’t there.”
On paper, Resurgence did hold some potential: 20 years after the alien attack devasted the planet, humans now live in peace and have harnessed the remnants of the advanced alien tech to create a galactic defense network. Unfortunately, the result is a horrible mess.
The film is also quite presumptuous. The final scene, in which Dr. Brackish Okun (Brent Spiner) says, “Let’s go kick some alien butt!” after deciding to take the ongoing fight to the aliens’ home world, suggests an immediate sequel was planned.
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Director Roland Emmerich revealed, at the time of the film’s release, that there were plans for a third Independence Day film, but the 2016 sequel’s poor performance at the box office and with critics led to those plans being scrapped.
A lot has changed since then, though. Disney has acquired 20th Century Fox, so it may soon cast its giant, inescapable lens over Independence Day (almost like one of those 15-mile-wide, city-destroying alien spaceships in the 1996 film), which would come as no surprise when you consider how many IPs the House of Mouse has rebooted in recent years.
In an interview with ComicBook in 2021, Emmerich said he’d like to do the Independence Day follow-up on a smaller budget for Disney+:
“They [Disney] have now a streaming service and they need product. I would love to do maybe a third one, or a TV show, continuing the story. When we did Independence Day: Resurgence, we already had, also, the third part already. And actually, the third part has much more to do with the first part, because we learned, more or less, that out there are a lot of refugees and they’re living on a refugee planet. And where [the aliens] finally come there because, somewhat like these aliens on earth, found out about it and telepathically or whatever gave it to their super queen. They’re all humans, but in all different forms.”
As for whether or not there are any concrete plans for a follow-up, Emmerich said “we’ll see what happens”, but that he’s “very passionate about it”:
“But we’ll see what happens. It doesn’t matter, whoever does it, but I feel very passionate about it, very, very passionate, because it was a little bit like… this movie single-handedly also got me total freedom. I have final cut since then. I pretty much do my own thing. And now, even producing my own films, no studio anymore, I got myself a studio, you know what I mean? In a very small form, like a little garage studio. Anyhow, I feel very, very passionate about it because it was my first — actually, that’s why both Stargate and Independence Day are seminal movies for me. They pretty much created all of what I did afterwards.”
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If a Disney+ “resurgence” of Independence Day is on the cards, could Will Smith return to the franchise? If it’s a follow-up and not a reboot, whether a film or a television series (the latter is rumored to be in development), the real obstacle is Smith’s character being dead.
As a result of the star dropping out of Resurgence at the last minute, the filmmakers decided to kill off his character between films, rather unceremoniously. Hiller is effectively “replaced” by his stepson, Dylan Dubrow-Hiller, played by Jessie T. Usher Jr.
While there are many ways to bring back dead characters, perhaps the most straightforward route would be for the follow-up to completely ignore Resurgence, in the same way the latest Halloween films ignore every sequel since John Carpenter’s 1978 original.
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The question, then, would be whether or not Will Smith would even want to return. We know the star isn’t against sequels — Men In Black, Bad Boys — and he had no beef with Independence Day: Resurgence, just bad timing.
A property like Independence Day could help put Smith “back on the map” following his nosedive in popularity after he walked on stage during the 2022 Oscars and slapped stand-up comedian Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith.
But despite all the controversy, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air star’s career is far from over, as he’ll soon appear in the fourth Bad Boys film. If he’s hoping to reclaim his popularity with audiences, though, he may be forced to return to Independence Day, the franchise that kick-started his career in cinema.
Would you like to see Independence Day continue, with or without Will Smith? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!