1996s Independence Day, starring Will Smith, destroyed the box office ($817 million) and became an instant classic. The film ushered in the disaster film era and also brought science fiction to the Hollywood forefront. So, what went so wrong with the sequel?
A sequel took 20 years, but Independence Day: Resurgence fell short of expectations. The film only drew $389 million on a $165 million budget. It pretty much killed any chances of a third franchise film. The third film was set to take the fight to the alien homeworld.
Critics trashed the movie in reviews, and audiences left theaters. The film took an amazing idea and threw everything at the wall with the sequel.
It wasn’t just fans and critics that had an issue with the film, the film’s director, Roland Emmerich does too. In an interview with Yahoo, the director was asked about his inspirations to move forward with a sequel at all to Independence Day:
“I just wanted to make a movie exactly like the first, but then in the middle of production Will (Smith) opted out because he wanted to do Suicide Squad.
I should have stopped making the movie because we had a much better script, then I had to really fast, cobble another script together.
I should have just said no because all of a sudden I was making something I criticized myself: a sequel.”
Disney now owns the franchise, but it will take a small miracle to get another sequel the green light. The studio won’t move forward on a franchise that did so poorly at the box office. Producer Dean Devlin said:
“Currently, I personally have no plans of doing another one.”
