INDEPENDENCE DAY 2 Officially Greenlit
Director Roland Emmerich has been developing an Independence Day sequel for a few years already, but it was finally officially greenlit by 20th Century Fox. The news comes from Deadline, which also reports that the film will go into production in May of 2015. The studio will release the movie on June 24th, 2016.
If you were hoping to see Will Smith reprise his role, don't hold your breath, because the site says it's not going to happen. While Emmerich was developing the movie with producer Dean Devlin, they had two scripts written. One of them included Smith's character, and the other one didn't.
The studio is currently in the process of negotiating with Emmerich to direct. They will start casting the movie after they lock Emmerich's deal into place. There was speculation at one point that we would see two films shot back-to-back, but Fox only greenlit one for now.
The first Independence Day was so fun and exciting when I first saw it back in 1996. I hope the sequel can capture that same magic.