When Disney announced its historic merger of 20th Century Fox, most (if not all) of the media attention was trained on the latter’s comic book properties – namely Deadpool, Fantastic Four, and the X-Men.
And it wasn’t long before the Internet began dreaming up potential scenarios in which Fox’s merry band of mutants would cross over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nevertheless, the Mouse House acquired scores of properties as part of the Disney-Fox merger, including Planet of the Apes, Alien and Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day series, which spent years – nay, decades – on the sidelines only to return with a box office bomb: Resurgence.
Alas, despite all the hype that preceded Independence Day 2, Emmerich’s long-in-development sequel lacked the same heartfelt story as its predecessors – something the director has admitted himself. Despite all this, Roland Emmerich is still hopeful that Disney will one day issue the green light on a third Independence Day.
I don’t know. I really haven’t even gotten to it. I had naturally talked with Fox about it, and then when they got bought, I kind of said, ‘Well, that’s probably [over.]’ But I don’t know. We’ll see, it’s kind of like it could happen, it could not happen. Hollywood is like a strange, strange place these days, because I have a feeling Disney would maybe be interested in doing it. They like that kind of franchise movie.
The likes of Deadpool, the X-Men, and Planet of the Apes will no doubt take priority for Disney over the coming weeks and months, but it’ll be interesting to see whether Independence Day 3 ever sees the warm light of day. Emmerich himself once described his vision for the threequel as an “intergalactic journey,” though the fate of this franchise really lies in the proverbial hands of Disney.
And, truth be told, we’re less than optimistic. Meanwhile, Roland Emmerich’s next project is very Roland Emmerich. It’s called Moonfall, and involves a space crew scrambling to the moon after a stray asteroid sets our rocky neighbour on a collision course with Earth.