UPDATE: Emmerich has been talking about the plans once more to Collider and now says that despite he and Dean Devlin mapping out two sequels, Fox appears happier making one for now and judging the demand for another based on that movie's results. He's also claiming that Will Smith won't be back because he's too expensive and too much of a marquee name.
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Back in March, Roland Emmerich kept the fires of hope in the hearts of **I****ndependence Day **fans stoked with word that he was continuing to work on not one but two sequels to the original. 20th Century Fox has now set July 3, 2015 as the date for at least the first of those planned new movies.
Of course, having a date means very little if there’s no cast locked down and no movie made. But it’s a very clear sign that at least one of the films – apparently named** ID Forever **Parts One and Two – will step blinking into the projector’s light within a couple of years.
So far, concrete details on the plot or possible actor involvement are hard to come by, with Bill Pullman insisting he’ll be back and no word on whether Will Smith wants to return as hotshot pilot Steven Hiller. Might After Earth’s disappointing showing at the box office nudge him into the job?
Emmerich will be doing promotion for White House Down soon, so we expect him to begin discussing his ideas for the new Independence Day. Whether his latest chat about the alien race following up a distress call from the original mother ship and facing down a technologically advanced human race pans out remains to be seen.
Also planned for the date is an untitled Illumination Entertainment / Universal project, which means the Despicable Me producers could be going head-to-head with a live-action behemoth. Fox has slotted in Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children in on July 31 the same year and that one is currently sitting pretty alone.
White House Down, meanwhile, arrives on September 6.