This news is courtesy of IESB...
20th Century Fox is still bathing in money from James Cameron's Avatar. At this point, we're talking dog toilet-paper bucks they've earned so much. So obviously a sequel is happening, right? Sure, but the waiting time for said follow-up looks to be a minimum of four years. Fox does have their fair share of comic-book properties getting the "Reboot" treatment and other sci-fi films such as the Predator and Alien franchises. But still the studio needs an honest-to-Christ event picture – something huge, something like.....wait for it......Independence Day.
They've made no qualms about wanting an ID4 sequel. Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman told as much to IESB a few years back. The problem is various nails in the road have stopped that from happening. For one, producers/writers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich cooked up a story but at the time decided they weren't ready to return to that world just yet.
More recent, Emmerich told Latino Review Fox just wasn't willing to cut their teeth over the list price for one Will Smith. Being the only movie-star in the world (an actor who guarantees asses in seats), Smith gets $20 million up front plus first dollar gross. That alone has stopped the studio cold from moving forward. Until now it seems.
IESB has received a tip that Will Smith is now locked for not only Independence Day 2, but also a third installment. The plan would be to shoot both films back-to-back. Whether the studio opts to go the Matrix route and release the two films six months apart or do like the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and split them by a year remains to be seen. According to our sources, if all goes according to plan, the sequel(s) could shoot as early as 2011.
This would be Emmerich's next directorial endeavor after his William Shakespeare thriller Anonymous. This would also come after Will Smith's next (which will be either The City That Sailed or Men in Black 3). So this wouldn't interfere with those projects.
The original ID-4 brought in a total of $817,400,891in worldwide box office receipts and you can easily add another $200 million plus in DVD sales and TV rights.That's right, ID4 is a bona fide billion dollar franchise.
Keep in mind, folks, we're still awaiting confirmation from Fox and other sources - who as of now have not yet been able to confirm or deny our story. Even though this comes via a reliable source, we're going to put this in the "Rumor" catalog for the time being.
So it appears fourteen years after the fact (Yes, it has been that long!), we might finally be getting Independence Day sequels..
The IESB will keep you informed on any updates.
P.S. Memo to MTV....Fuck off for what you are going to post after reading this