It looks like the poor taste thatIndependence Day: Resurgenceleft behind has pretty much taken another possible sequel off the table. At the very least, producer Dean Devlin has no plans on makingIndependence Day 3happen. Director Roland Emmerich seemed confident that the long-awaited sequel to the originalIndependence Daywould kickstart the franchise for more than just one entry, but one of the key figures from behind the scenes doesn’t sound remotely interested in making that happen. So the franchise could be dead in the water. And maybe that’s for the best.
The fact of the matter is thatIndependence Day: Resurgencedidn’t do nearly what Fox was hoping it would. Director Roland Emmerich was excited about the project but that excitement didn’t translate to a quality movie that people wanted to see. So, even though Emmerich planned to makeIndependence Day 3rather quickly, that clearly isn’t happening. If he wants to get it done, he’s going to have to do it without the help of Dean Devlin, who was asked about the possibility ofconcluding the trilogyat WonderCon over the weekend. Here’s what he had to say about it.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Currently, I personally have no plans on doing another one.”
Independence Day: Resurgencewas released in June of 2016 with a thud. The movie was trashed by critics and fans alike, currently sitting at a 30 percent approval rating across the board on Rotten Tomatoes. The quality of the movie being what it is didn’t help it at the box office either, earning just $389.6 million worldwide. Given the $165 million production budget and surely expensive marketing campaign, if Fox made any money on the sequel, it was minimal at best. And that’s a pretty big if.
With that in mind, makingIndependence Day 3would seem likea very poor business decisionfor Fox. Not only didResurgenceunderperform, but it really did little to encourage moviegoers that another movie would be able to course correct enough to make seeing a third movie in the franchise worth their time. So it’s likely that a thirdIndependence Daymovie would make even less than its predecessor managed to. Given the way the last movie ended, it’s clear that the plan was totake the series intergalacticand leave Earth, and Roland Emmerich has said as much. But that’s just a pipe dream now, or so it would seem.
Not only isproducer Dean Devlin, who was a core part of the creative team onIndependence Day 2, no longer interested in doing another movie, but there’s also the Disney/Fox merger to consider. While regulating bodies have yet to approve the sale, if and when it happens, Disney will be in control of Fox’s franchises. That extends toIndependence Day. It’s even less likely that the Mouse House would pursueIndependence Day 3. But who knows? Maybe in another 15 or 20 years they’ll come up with a way to reboot it. For now, the franchise looks to have been put out of its misery. This news comes to us courtesy ofLRM.
