‘Independence Day’ Sequel Was Rewritten in 2 Weeks After Will Smith Dropped Out, Roland Emmerich Says
thewrap.comreportedly to star in “Suicide Squad” instead).“I’m proud of ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ but we had one problem: Will Smith decided while we were preparing, to drop out.
That was a huge, huge blow to me,” Emmerich said.What made things even more difficult was the fact that pre-production on the movie was in full swing, leaving Emmerich in a precarious position. “At that point I had to decide, should I keep going or not?” Emmerich said. “I realized we had spent $10 or 12 million and you don’t drop out easily.”Undeterred, he regrouped and wrote an entirely new script. “I got two young writers and we locked ourselves in my New York apartment, because one couldn’t leave New York, he had a TV show there.
And we wrote a new script in two weeks,” Emmerich said. “We had to. There were daily calls from [Fox president] Emma Watts at that time.”It’s impressive that Emmerich was able to finish the movie at all, that it was so guiltily enjoyable, and that it wound up making nearly $400 million worldwide.
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