‘Independence Day 2’ Begins to Come Together; Plus ‘Stargate’ May Get a New Movie Trilogy

We’ve heard rumblings regarding a sequel to Independence Day for years, with Roland Emmerich continually promising a potential second (and maybe third) installment in the alien invasion franchise that began all the way back in 1996. They’re re-releasing Independence Day in 3D next summer, and now here comes even more talk, this time from Emmerich’s former producing partner Dean Devlin (Stargate, Independence Day, Universal Soldier), who tells THR in an interview that they’re closer than they’ve ever been to bringing Independence Day 2 to the big screen. “I can tell you that Roland and I have been working together for the first time in 11 years and we’re every excited about the idea of doing it,” he said, adding that he feels they have a “worthy concept” for the sequel.

So what is that worthy concept? He doesn’t say, except that it’ll be a direct sequel that’s more “organic” and less “about the money,” and hopefully less about a computer virus beating an advanced alien race. Naturally some of this probably depends on who from the cast they could get to return, and with Will Smith recently speaking out against doing more sequels to his movies, that could be a sticking point in staging an Independence Day sequel. All Devlin had to say on that front was that they’re “… beginning a long process of talking to everybody. We’ll just have to see what happens.” Indeed we will.

Meanwhile, Devlin also mentions Stargate, saying that the original vision for that movie was to make it a trilogy, except that didn’t happen. So could it happen now? He says,  “When we made the first one, we always intended on doing part two and three, and we were prevented for years. And our hope is that we can get another chance at Stargate and tell the entire story we wanted to tell.”

Which would you rather see: a new Independence Day movie, a Stargate trilogy or neither?