It should come as no surprise that Rolland Emmerich’s sequel Independence Day: Resurgence tanked at the box office over the weekend. The film only raked in a measly $41.6 million, where the hit original pulled in $50.2 million. That might not seem too bad comparatively, unless you look at the fact that tickets cost half of what they do now. Then the realization becomes clear that Resurgence is not fairing well.
The studio (20th Century Fox) doesn’t seem to be sweating things too much, Resurgence made $102.1 million internationally, which brings the total first weekend numbers to $143.7 million, coming close to the total budget of the film ($165 million). This is great news for the film, and despite its dismal domestic box office numbers, Roland Emmerich may already have his sights set on a sequel.
Why is the Film Doing Bad?
You can cite many reasons why Independence Day: Resurgence is not doing very well. Could it be tanking because Will Smith isn’t in the film, or are audiences fed up with sequels? There is no way to know for sure. You would think that a film titled after the American Independence Day would hit big with domestic movie goers, but Americans aren’t in Independence Day mode for another week, and crowds have yet to embrace the disaster flick.
These hurdles aren’t deterring director Roland Emmerich from talking about where the film franchise would go next. In a recent interview with Empire, Emmerich has his sights set on a sequel (with not a shred of doubt) saying:
The next one will be an intergalactic journey. It’ll be [set] maybe a year or two later, not 20 years [on]. I want to maintain this group of people, especially the young characters, and Jeff [Goldblum] and Brent [Spiner] will take part in it. It’ll be fun to keep that group together. I imagine them now going in one of these ships they’ve rebuilt into a wormhole. I think it’ll be the classic of going into space but it has to be about Earth, and we have a really good idea for that.
This direction would take the franchise from an Earth-bound series, into the far reaches of space. Could this save Independence Day 3? How do you think Emmerich will keep the film about Earth, despite it potentially taking place in space?
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