After 18 years, Jeff Goldblum will fight off invading hostile aliens once again. That's right. The sequel for 1996's highest-grossing film "Independence Day" is stirring up, the actor says so.
Goldblum said, in a recent interview with Time, that although it hasn't been made official, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin (director and producer, respectively, who both co-wrote the screenplay of the original film) told him that there's a part for him in the sequel.
"I had a meeting and have been talking over the last several months or year with Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the producer," Goldblum told Time on his possible involvement in the project. "And they've been cooking up and say they have a part for me in what they hope will be a plan to make another one pretty soon."
Relatedly, there were earlier speculations that Goldblum will also return in the fourth installment of the "Jurassic Park" series , where the actor played chaos theorist, Dr. Ian Malcolm in the first two films. But to the dismay of fans, Goldblum said that he would not.
"Well, people like that Jurassic Park thing, and I think they're making another which I tell them, I'll be first in line for, but am not in," Goldblum initially told Time.
A possible sequel had been discussed as early as 2002, and, according to Mania and an interview with IGN, Dean Devlin once said that the September 11 terrorist attack strongly influenced him to consider making a sequel. However, Devlin and Roland Emmerich abandoned the idea because their attempt to "figure out a way how to continue the story" ultimately did not work, Sci Fi Wire reported.
In 2009, Emmerich stated that he had new plans for the sequel, according to IGN, and in 2011 Collider reported that the Devlin/Emmerich pair confirmed that they have found an idea for the sequels (they planned for two sequels to make a trilogy) and they would like Will Smith to return for the projects. However, talks with Will Smith halted were put on hold because 20th Century Fox refused to pay the $50 million salary Smith required for the two sequels, which prompted Emmerich, Movie Web wrote, to make guarantees that back-to-back production will push through regardless of Smith's involvement.
Fast forward to 2013. Emmerich confirmed to the Daily News in June that year that Will Smith is not returning to the sequels because "he is too expensive." Later that month, Emmerich announced that Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman will officially return and a gay character will feature in the sequels, according to reports by Den of Geek and IGN.
In May 2014, it was announced that the script written by Devlin and Emmerich for the first sequel will get a rewrite overhaul from Carter Blanchard, Deadline reported.
From the original July 3, 2015 release date, the first sequel had been rescheduled to hit theaters on July 1, 2016.
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