Independence Day Sequel Could Have Been About Peace (But It's Not)

Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day: Resurgence, revealed in an interview with Empire, that his original idea for a sequel to the sci-fi action hit was less about blowing things up and more about a world at peace. Then he changed his mind.

"It was after 9/11 and [producer] Dean [Devlin] and I wanted to make the movie about peace, and it just didn't work," Emmerich said.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Hollywood briefly did a little self-reflective speculation and toyed with the notion that the era of violent movies was over, but it didn't take long for producers to back away from the prospect of writing movies about peace. Filmmakers like Emmerich admitted that they didn't know how to write a blockbuster that wasn't based on explosions.

"It was just too weak an idea, and we didn't really want to do it," he says of the proposed sequel. "Only the alien ship was destroyed!"

Rest assured that in the sequel that eventually got made, much more than the alien ship will be destroyed. Although original star Will Smith will not return to blow up aliens, other members of the original cast, including Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman and Vivica Fox, will be back. Independence Day: Resurgence opens on June 24, 2016.