Say what you will about the prospects for Independence Day 2 – and a lot will be said in the coming months and years – but here’s at least one ray of sunshine: both Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum have been confirmed to reprise their Independence Day roles in the sequel.
Director Roland Emmerich himself recently confirmed in an interview with Movies.com that the two stars will be returning for Independence Day 2. He does not specify what has happened to their characters, or where they are in their lives, but they will be there, front and center, ready to save the world again.
Despite the conspicuous lack of Will Smith, who is just far too expensive to appear in the film, the return of Goldblum and Pullman at least provide two-thirds of what made the original Independence Day so much fun. Goldblum played nerdy (read: awesome) computer whiz David Levinson, the other half of the wisecracking, earth-saving team with Will Smith. And Pullman, of course, delivered the most rousing speech ever given by a fake President about to lead a team of fly-boys to fend off an alien attack on the Fourth of July.
While we can assume that Pullman’s President Whitmore is not a president anymore – unless he was elected President For Life after being such a badass – not much else can be said for where these characters will fit in to Independence Day 2.
Hopefully this will not turn into a mere rehashing of the original film. Emmerich can be a very spotty director (see: The Day After Tomorrow, 2012), but he also knows his action (see: Independence Day). If he can make magic happen again, with a similar cast, then more power to him.
Independence Day 2 has been slated for a 2015 release, when we will discover if a computer virus can once more defeat a technologically advanced species. Or something like that. Who knows?