Critics have never been overly kind to Roland Emmerich's disaster epics, but
Independence Day is mostly beloved by moviegoers and credited for being one of the films that helped turn Will Smith into a megastar. However, in a new interview, the filmmaker has addressed what went wrong with the sequel, Resurgence, and it sounds like
Suicide Squad is to blame in Emmerich's eyes.
"I just wanted to make a movie exactly like the first," he explained in a recent interview with
Yahoo Movies,
"but then in the middle of production Will [Smith] opted out because he wanted to do Suicide Squad." It was the actor's commitment to playing Deadshot that meant Emmerich went back to the drawing board and decided to shift
Resurgence's focus to the son of Smith's character.
"I should have stopped making the movie because we had a much better script, then I had to really fast, cobble another script together," he continued.
"I should have just said no because all of a sudden I was making something I criticized myself: a sequel."
The
Independence Day follow-up was mauled by critics and only ended up making $389.7 million at the worldwide box office. As a result, the franchise is effectively dead, which is a shame because it is hard not to wonder what might have been had Smith not been too busy with
Suicide Squad!
Do you think his involvement would have saved
Independence Day: Resurgence, though?
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