Well, that was fast. Earlier today, we wrote about how studios are buying back into the Die Hard model of action film and one of their recent acquisitions was a spec script called White House Down, written by The Amazing Spider-Man scribe James Vanderbilt. Only a few hours later, Deadline is reporting that Independence Day director Roland Emmerich is in talks to direct. More below.

We now have a slightly better description of the plot, which is described as involving a paramilitary takeover of The White House. It’s not much to go on, but with the addition of Emmerich as the director, I think we have a better idea of what to expect. I was one of the few people who actually found quite a bit to like about Emmerich’s Shakespeare film Anonymous, but most people seem to agree that he’s best suited for massive budget CGI “disaster porn.” White House Down sounds a little more contained than the globe-spanning nonsense of 2012, his last blockbuster, and that’s definitely a good thing; I’ll be interested to see what Emmerich can do with an action drama that sounds like it falls squarely in between the two extremes.

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Anonymous offers an alternate historical account of the creation and popularization of the works of William Shakespeare. Based on a real but unsubstantiated theory, the plot suggests that all of Shakespeare’s famous plays and sonnets were actually the work of the Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans), a wunderkind writer who is shackled by the constraints of his upper class status and therefore can’t release the plays under his own name. The Earl teams with a young playwright, Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) to create the ruse, choosing a drunken actor named William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall) as his avatar.

The biggest compliment I can give Anonymous, aside from it being a decent period drama, is that it doesn’t feel like a Roland Emmerich movie. That director, famous for huge blockbusters like 2012 and Independence Day, hasn’t made what I would call a “good” movie in close to twenty years, so it’s nice to see him scale back his typical “disaster porn” and take on a more personal, controlled film. The movie works particularly well in the first half, as the Earl suffers as he watches his own plays from the balcony of London theaters, unable to accept the applause and credit bestowed upon the blithering young actor. It has shades of The Prestige, in which Hugh Jackman’s character, relying on a body double, must take his bows beneath the stage to complete the illusion while his double relishes in the ovation above.

But by the end, the movie seems to get too wrapped up in the politics of its setting. The magic of the first half gives way to plodding explanations of character motives that have nothing to do with the much more interesting “who is the real author?” question. Rhys Ifans, soon to be donning scales as The Lizard in the upcoming reboot The Amazing Spider-Man, is solid as the Earl of Oxford, but it’s Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays the younger version of that same character in flashbacks, that provides this film with an emotional spark. Real life mother and daughter Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson play the older and younger versions of the Queen, respectively, and both actresses are excellent.

Speaking of flashbacks, this movie LOVES them. It jumps through the timeline often, and structurally it can leave the audience scratching its collective head at times. The film opens with a performance of a play (which is the movie we’re about to see) in modern day New York City, and quickly transitions into the “film world” with Ben Jonson being questioned as to the location of the works of “Shakespeare.” It flashes back one year earlier, setting up characters and explaining the world, and then flashes back forty years before that, skipping back and forth between those last two time frames for the majority of the film to detail the relationship between the Earl of Oxford and Queen Elizabeth across the years. Confused yet? It then skips back to one year later, and wraps up with the modern day New York stuff again. It all makes sense, it’s just a little messy from a storytelling and editing standpoint.

Is Anonymous worth seeing in theaters? There’s certainly no epic scope to it, so I’d say it’s not necessary. Is it worth seeing at all? As with all film choices, that’s up to you – but I’ll recommend a home video viewing if you’re at all interested in Shakespeare, good period pieces, or revisionist history. It’s inspiring at times, favoring the power of words over swords on battlefields; though the film never explores these acknowledgments too deeply, it still touches on them in an engrossing way for most of its duration. Until next time…

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Over recent years Roland Emmerich has been gearing up not one but two sequels to Independence Day, the 1996 movie which made $800m worldwide. Back in 2009 it was a case of money, with 20th Century Fox reluctant to give Will Smith and Emmerich a big piece of the pie (an upfront fee and then a % of the profits).

Now Vulture brings word that Emmerich and screenwriting partner Dean Devlin are putting the finishing touches to the two scripts, and “they’re expected to be delivered to Fox by early to mid-December”. The site has also heard “Fox is willing to make the movies without Smith” if a deal can’t be made.

Last year Emmerich hinted that Smith would have an important role the films, saying:

“It’s an alternate reality kind of movie,” he said. “We pick up the story, what would have happened after this kind of attack? Naturally, the alien technology has changed everything.”

“Did they rebuild the White House? Who will be president? “Or, who will be president?” Emmerich answered. “Who will be president? See?”

Yep, if Will signs he’ll most likely be playing President Stephen Hiller, instead of Captain. Vulture points out that Smith doesn’t have his next movie completely locked as One Thousand A.E., which has M. Night Shyamalan directing and his son Jaden Smith co-starring, is “going extra-slow on preproduction”. This increases the likelihood of Smith returning for the Independence Day sequels, but the key factor will probably be $$$.

Fox could make the movies without him and introduce new leads. The success of Roland’s 2012 and the Transformers franchise is evidence that you don’t need big stars if you’re just causing destruction, but having Smith involved would help getting audiences on-board.

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Earlier this year there was talk of 20th Century Fox moving forward with potentially two sequels to Independence Day, which made over $800 million in 1996.

Now MTV has posted some details which they forgot to post last year (why I don’t know). Director Roland Emmerich apparently wants to call them ID4-ever: Part I and ID4-ever: Part II with Will Smith’s character Steven Hiller as President of the United States of America.

First off, he describes the story — which would be set in the present day, over a decade after the alien invasion of the original film — as an “alternate reality” film.

“It’s an alternate reality kind of movie,” he said. “We pick up the story, what would have happened after this kind of attack? Naturally, the alien technology has changed everything.”

Did they rebuild the White House? Who will be president? “Or, who will be president?” Emmerich answered. “Who will be president? See?”

He’d just dropped us a non-too-subtle clue with that drawn out “will,” and the implication was clear: Will Smith, the fighter jet-flying hero of the 1996 film, at some point became commander-in-chief after the attacks. Whether he remains Mr. President during the course of the sequels or is eventually elected during the new films is an open question.

The problem back in March seemed to be money (as with most movie problems). Will Smith and director Roland Emmerich (who made $100 million from 2012) don’t come cheap, and even though 20th Century Fox made over $2 billion from Avatar they don’t particularly want to sign a deal whereby their star and director get a huge chunk of the profits.

Bill Pullman, who played the President in the original film, told MTV Emmerich “is one guy who may be able to pull it off. He doesn’t let it die”, which means if Smith and Roland Emmerich want it to happen, it will probably happen.

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While on the rounds promoting 2012 in October director Roland Emmerich said that he had a story for an Independence Day sequel and had spoken with 20th Century Fox about it. The only problem was money, and negotiating who gets paid what.

Will Smith was interested, but considering Independence Day made over $800 million worldwide (and his continued box office success since then) he was looking to get an upfront fee and then a % of the profits for the sequel. Roland Emmerich may have been looking for a similar deal too. He made $100 million from 2012 as he had a deal whereby he received 20% of the first-dollar gross profits. Fox could potentially have to pay out $50+ million just for the director and star (and then more after the film is released).

Well it seems all involved may have sorted out their deals, as IESB are reporting that we may be getting not one, but two, Independence Day sequels.

IESB has received a tip that Will Smith is now locked for not only Independence Day 2, but also a third installment. The plan would be to shoot both films back-to-back. Whether the studio opts to go the Matrix route and release the two films six months apart or do like the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and split them by a year remains to be seen. According to our sources, if all goes according to plan, the sequel(s) could shoot as early as 2011.

This would be Emmerich’s next directorial endeavor after his William Shakespeare thriller Anonymous. This would also come after Will Smith’s next (which will be either The City That Sailed or Men in Black 3). So this wouldn’t interfere with those projects.

With the box office gross of the first film in 1996 20th Century Fox could potentially have a billion dollar franchise on their hands. James Cameron recently said that even if he began working on Avatar 2 tomorrow it would still take 3 years to make, so Fox will be keen to get another ‘event’ movie in the pipeline in the meantime.

What do you think of this news? Would you be interested in seeing more Independence Day films, or should Fox let the film remain a standalone 1996 hit?

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In the run up to the release of CGI disaster-fest 2012 director Roland Emmerich revealed that he was planning to make a TV show based on the film which would follow the events of the films ending. It would be called 2013 and Emmerich said it would contain similar themes to those in ABC’s Lost (a bunch of survivors stranded somewhere). However in an interview with MovieWeb Emmerich said that it’s unlikely the TV show will come into function as “it was just too big for TV”.

[Spoilers for those who haven't seen 2012]

It has been reported that you plan on turning 2012 into a television series. Where does production on that stand at this point in time?

Roland Emmerich: We tried to do that. But the TV people soon realized what we really wanted to do with the concept. They said, “You cannot do this on television.” So I said, “Let’s not do it. It was just too big for TV. What we wanted to do.”

Is there any plan to turn that idea into a feature film?

Roland Emmerich: No, no, no. It was not a sequel. It was a story you could only tell once. There was no sequel to Noah’s Ark. It would have been a great TV show. Because it would have dealt with the facts of arriving in Africa. We would have seen what happened had Cape Town survived. Those people already living there would be majorly pissed. Because the ships didn’t take them. There was this whole political edge to it. It would have been a very political TV show. It had such big themes. It was about reaching for the stars. There was an economic reality that kept it from becoming a reality. We didn’t want to compromise. We said, “Let’s not do it.”

After reading his description I would actually be interested in seeing a show like that. It has a District 9 vibe to it (without the aliens obviously). Emmerich says that producer Mark Gordon (Grey’s Anatomy, 2012) is trying to find a way to make it cheaper in the hope of attracting studios, although he doesn’t think it will happen.

Would you have been interested in a 2012 TV series?

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Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012…essentially anything where the world is destroyed by an enormous overload of CGI) is planning to develop a series of films based on Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.

Asimov’s books revolve around two societies that are created at opposite ends of the galaxy, as sources of human knowledge, in an attempt to shorten a coming dark age. The dark age is predicted by a mathematician’s psychohistory, a science that allows him to predict large-scale events in the future.

Emmerich intends to shoot the films using the same methods as Avatar; filming everything using motion-capture, and then presenting it in 3D CGI. MTV Movies Blog, who have the original story, provide this quote from Emmerich:

“It’s not only the effect of 3-D, ['Avatar' has] just shown that if you do a movie in 3-D, you can ask for more money and that’s the trick.”

Inspiring.

Robert Rodat has worked on the current draft of the screenplay, his previous work including Saving Private Ryan. This could give the trilogy of films a slightly bigger chance, considering that Emmerich’s involvement doesn’t give me any positive vibes. I just hope he doesn’t dumb down the subject matter to blow up some more famous monuments. And he’s probably leaping at the chance to do that in 3D. I have mixed feelings about how the Foundation films will turn out – The Day After Tomorrow on one hand, Saving Private Ryan on the other…

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Latino Review got the chance to interview director Roland Emmerich while he was on the rounds promoting his latest end of the world movie 2012, and they asking him about making a sequel to his 1996 end of the world movie Independence Day.

LatinoReview: I heard there was a script for a sequel. What’s the real reason there is no sequel?

Emmerich: 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.

LatinoReview: But there is a story right?

Emmerich: Oh yeah! There’s a story. There’s a very really good great story, a very cool one.

So the sequel may movie forward if they can sort out who’s getting paid what. Everyone knows Will Smith brings in the money, and he will no doubt be asking for his share.

For Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull Harrison Ford turned down an upfront fee and instead made a deal to take a % of the box office gross. As the movie made $786 million worldwide he walked away with a cool $43.3 million. Independence Day made $817 worldwide. Can you see what Smith and Emmerich are thinking here? And can you see why Fox are trying to get Emmerich to do it without Smith? They don’t want to pay him $40+ million or whatever the deal is. I haven’t done the numbers but i’d say Smith was worth it. He’s got worldwide appeal, not many actors have that.

Would you be up for an Independence Day 2? Would you see the sequel if Will Smith wasn’t involved?

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If you have seen the trailers and 5 minute preview for Roland Emmerich 2012 then you may have noticed that a great deal of special effects are involved. It’s not obvious at first but after you see California sink into the ocean, killing millions, it suddenly dawns on you that they didn’t actually sink part of America for the movie, so some of that movie magic must be involved somewhere. Well Yahoo! have posted a new feature online which takes us behind the scenes of 2012, and we get a glimpse at how they make all that craziness.

It’s clear that 2012 relies heavily on special effects, but what would the movie look like without them? It’d probably be 2 hours of this:

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We saw a 50 second preview yesterday and now we have the full 5 minute clip. It’s crazy, it’s over the top and it’s full of CGI. I don’t think there will be a disaster movie in the future that will be able to top this.

It begins with John Cusack driving at high speed in a limo whilst on the phone to the mother of his children. He tells her to “pack up the kids” because “California is going down”. Less than a minute later everyone is in the limo and they are driving away from an earthquake (just like people ran from the cold in The Day After Tomorrow). For the rest of the clip it’s just pure mayhem and a special effects bonanza. You’ll have to watch it to understand what I’m talking about.

Obviously this is one of those big blockbusters that’s main selling point is the special effects. The story and acting will take a back seat, but people will lap it up and it will make a tonne of money. From the clip I got the feeling that the actors were under-acting, but I can understand why. Director Roland Emmerich will have told them the basics, however I don’t even think the actors could imagine what the end result would be.

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