Roland Emmerich News

Roland Emmerich is up to his old antics again. Last week, he amused us by claiming that he plans to be skiing on Doomsday in 2012, and now he's making ridiculous comments about the long-overdue Independence Day sequel that has been floundering for years.

"What we want to do in the next – it's actually two movies – we want to do a bigger arc," Emmerich recently told MTV News. "'Independence Day' was always like the king who leads his troops into battle against an evil force, and that stays like that."

"The idea is just to continue the story and actually I don't know how many years ago this was—twelve, thirteen, fourteen years ago—and just continue where it ended," he added.

The best part was delivered in Emmerich's usual playful, flamboyant manner. The title for these new engines of destruction? "'ID4-ever,' Part I and II maybe?"

No, that's not a typo. The notoriously boisterous German disaster man actually came up with a title more befitting a Wayan's brothers parody than a blow-em-up alien invasion film.

The real question is was he joking? Well, as it's Roland Emmerich, you can never tell...

At least Emmerich deserves to be playful; 2012 nabbed the top spot this weekend, earning a hefty $65 million dollars.

If you ever wondered how nuts a guy like Roland Emmerich would have to be to make some of cinema's most preposterous disaster films, look no further than this recent interview he did with comingsoon.net.

"It is peculiar how 2012 is this date that there are a lot of ideas about it, and we chose the destructive one," the flamboyant director said. " I think destruction works better in the movie. The preparations, well, I will go ski. It is December 21st, which is skiing season. I will chose the highest mountain there is. If the world ends, you know, what can I do? If not, I will ski down."

And if that doesn't convince you he's crazy, check out his nonchalant attitude about wiping the White House off the map... again.

"Harold said, "If you don't destroy the White House, you will be asked about that." I said, "I cannot destroy the White House again." He said, "Well, just do it in a different way." At that time, I was reading a lot about the Kennedies. As a kid, maybe about twelve and a half, I visited these old war ships in the Chesapeake Bay and they had just inaugurated JFK there. I was really excited as a kid. It was about a wave, and then you know JFK comes back to the White House. I thought it was kind of clever. I told Harold, "Let's go for it!""

After claiming he was done with the disaster genre (yeah, right), Emmerich was asked what he might destroy next. His answer is beyond explanation.

"Actually, I destroyed the image of Shakespeare."

I rest my case.

2012 will destroy a theater near you this Friday.

Everyone who was alive back in 1996 remembers that Independence Day was the movie of the summer. It was one of the biggest blockbusters of all time, garnering over 800 million dollars worldwide.

With such a huge gross, one could almost hear the Hollywood machine go "cha-ching!" as it realized the franchise potential of such a film. But nothing happenend.

ID4 Producer/Director Roland Emmerich recently spoke to Latino Review while promoting his upcoming disaster epic, 2012. Upon being asked what the deal was with the long-rumored Independence Day sequel, Emmerich spilled these beans:

"Dean Devlin and I are still set to make a sequel likely because we've found some sort of idea and we approached FOX and FOX has not quite figured out how to incorporate Dean's and my deal, and Will's (Smith) deal. Will wants to do it in some sort of a package they can live with. So it's just been in negations now since forever, and naturally FOX says "Why don't you do it without Will Smith?" I said Will is essential for us, for this movie and actually for the audience too. And, so, it's in limbo and lately the studios are fighting. Like gross players, and Will is a gross player and is probably the only gross player right now who's worth his gross. So we'll see what happens. I would love to do it.."

Furthermore, it seems 20th Century Fox hasn't been all that honest about why the film hasn't happened yet. You can read more on the subject here.