In June, Roland said that Will Smith would not reprise his role, Captain Steven Hiller, in an
Independence Day sequel. The original film, which was released in 1996, was a box office hit ($800m), and many people assumed a sequel would be right around the corner, but it hasn't really gotten any traction until recently, with a release date set for July 3, 2015. As I was saying, Will Smith wasn't expected back, Emmerich using the excuse that Will Smith was too expensive, but apparently something has changed. He tells
Digital Spy, "I sometimes say no, Will Smith will not be in it because he didn't want to do it at first. Now we have a meeting planned, we want to talk about it again. Anything can happen."
For Will Smith, this makes sense. He made the disastrous decision of passing on the lead in Quentin Tarantino's highly-acclaimed film,
Django Unchained, so that he could make M. Night Shyamalan's atrocious film,
After Earth. The box office bomb stunk of nepotism, with Jaden Smith turning in another awkwardly bad performance.
And Emmerich, he isn't sitting pretty either.
White House Down was another film that performed very poorly at the box office. Some will tell you that it didn't perform well because
Olympus Has Fallen, a film with a nearly identical plot, opened before it, but that isn't true.
Olympus Has Fallen, while not great, it is highly entertaining and is lead by a strong performance from Gerard Butler. While
White House Down had the bigger star power, with Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum, but it was hell bent on dumbing down the audience.
Alright, let's move on to
Stargate. Roland says he always wanted to make a trilogy, but now the stars of the 1994 film, Kurt Russell and James Spader, are too old. Which I totally agree with. It's not like James Spader could pull off a big budget film any more. Just look at his filmography, the next film on his plate his some small independent film called
Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Anyways, Roland revealed his vague plans for
Stargate: "We went to MGM, who has the rights, and proposed to them to do a sequel, but as a reboot, and reboot it as a movie and then do three parts,"