There's an unwritten rule in Hollywood: the best time for sequel development is 3 to 5 years. But for Fox, Independence Day 2, which had long missed this best period, needed to succeed.
Both in name and plot, Independence Day: The Comeback is always trying to help us recall the first film, the story of how the Earthlings defeated the alien invaders, starring the newly established Will Smith.
One of the scenes I remember most in the whole film is when Dr. Oken (the strange scientist with long hair) suddenly opens his eyes from his coma and asks his friend next to him, "Did we win?" ”
If you're "old" enough and happen to have seen the movie, you'll immediately realize that this guy has been in a coma for a full 20 years — well, from the time of the release of the first Independence Day.
With good original stories becoming increasingly scarce, developing sequels has indeed become a shortcut to filmmaking. No, even Pixar, which has always been innovative and self-sustaining, has begun to develop sequels frequently.
If you're a nostalgic person, Independence Day 2 can fulfill your wishes: President Whitemore, The Levents, Dr. Okun, and other protagonists from previous films all return to the film. Although Smith, who is getting older and is fully committed to cultivating the next generation, does not appear "because of schedule and salary", the son of his character becomes the protagonist of the film.
In 1996, Independence Day set a box office record of $700 million, becoming the box office champion of the year. This not only made director Roland Emmerich fall in love with making disaster films, but also helped Hollywood commercial films create a new routine of visual effects blockbusters.
Emmerich has repeatedly said that he "hates making sequels the most", but perhaps because of the poor reputation of his films in recent years, or inspired by movies such as "Star Wars" that have focused countless attention after the reboot, or simply as he said, moved by Fox's "repeated requests", "Independence Day" has made a "comeback".
But unlike sequel films like Star Wars, which recreate new story lines and balance the tastes of fans and new audiences in their predecessors, Independence Day 2 seems to be more tailored to nostalgic old fans. The story itself wants to tell is almost exactly the same as the first one: alien invasion, destruction of landmark buildings, humanity begins to fight back, heroes appear after encountering setbacks, and finally humanity wins the final victory. But you know, the audience is now accustomed to special effects and big scenes.
In Hollywood, sequels are easy to get attention because they have the brand base of the previous game, but because of this, it is easy to be dragged down by the light of the previous game, that is, it is a high-risk and high-yield thing.
An unwritten rule in Hollywood is that the best period for sequel development is 3 to 5 years. Coincidentally, another sequel movie, "Raiders 2", was released on the same day as "Independence Day 2" in Chinese mainland, but it was only 3 years away from the first one.
After the simultaneous release of "Independence Day 2" in China and the United States on June 24, the box office in China was 240 million yuan in the first weekend, compared with the nearly 300 million yuan box office of "Amazing Monster Group 2" with a smaller investment, which is not a record worth celebrating.
But Fox needed Independence Day 2 to succeed. Throughout 2015, fox ranked third among Hollywood's six major theaters with a total box office performance of $2.73 billion, but this figure is far from the top two Universal ($6.88 billion) and Disney ($4.985 billion).
And the companies such as Warner and Sony that rank behind it cannot be underestimated. The former has stepped up the development of DC comics brands this year, with momentum against Disney's Marvel, while the latter has restarted the Spider-Man series that it once relied on mainly through cooperation with Marvel.
In contrast, Fox, the "gold-sucking guarantee" in his hand is only the "X-Men" series where the actors have changed blood. It desperately needs more new brand series – last year's poorly received new Fantastic Four will be flat and disqualified worldwide, and Deadpool, while the revenue ratio is very high, but the positioning of R-rated (under 17 years old cannot be watched alone) is somewhat limited.
The new hope lies in Independence Day 2, which currently has an IMDB rating of 5.9 and a Rotten Tomatoes freshness index of only 34 percent — Emmerich has begun to consider Independence Day 3.
We also talked to Emmerich and saw what he thought of the sequel —
On June 22, 2016, director Roland Emmerich participated in the premiere of the film "Independence Day 2" in Beijing.
q: What's it like to come back to Making Independence Day after 20 years?
a: The first film was a stand-alone film for me, and many years later, many people asked me if you were going to make a sequel, and I started thinking about it. In Independence Day 1, most of our special effects were implemented using miniatures, and I was using a digital camera for the first time when I was shooting "2012", and I did it on the computer in the later stages. That time I was wondering if I should reconsider making Independence Day again, and CG could already create the whole world in the film.
Spanning 20 years is very interesting and a very special situation, maybe from Independence Day 2 this is not a separate film, we can make it into 10 episodes, because a lot of things happen in between, I can create the next generation of actors to do these things that can't be done before.
q: Some sequels are great, some are poor, does that worry you?
a: I don't like the concept of "sequel" because most of the time, the sequel just repeats the previous film, but occasionally there are good sequels that can give people a new feeling, such as Alien 2 and Terminator 2, which are very good sequels, I just have some nervousness, because I don't want to "fry cold rice" anymore.
I think Independence Day: The Comeback is like a transformative new film, because there are some old characters and some new characters, and in the next movie I can focus more on certain relationships, such as the relationship between the two male protagonists getting very good in this one, so I will also focus more on developing the relationship between the two of them in the next episode.
At the end of the film, they also talk about interstellar travel. That's what I've always dreamed of. And now that these characters in the film have such technology, in the next step of the film, it is more like a traditional science fiction film, there will be a lot of cosmic, space fragments.
Q: What do you think about the brand value of Independence Day and what is the most important thing about making a series?
A: When you're going to make a film like this, you should look at the bigger picture, such as what is the core purpose of the film. I think it's more interesting to make a film in a world of unity, because today's world is more fragmented, there are many people-to-people discord, conflicts between people, and in general, even if people go into space, people are mainly human-oriented. We as human beings are going to fight for humanity, to fight for humanity in space and foolishness, and I think that's a big theme. In the next movie, you'll learn more about aliens, and you'll learn more about the origins of humans.
q: The implantation of Mengniu milk in the film is very direct, have you ever thought that this implantation may lower the grade of the whole movie?
a: When you're going to make a film like this, someone will come up to you and say we want to pay you for advertising if you use our products. Every filmmaker wants to make a familiar movie, and sometimes it is more difficult in movies. I have almost accepted this reality in American films, I still reject two or three products, I have the right to refuse them, but I think Mengniu is quite funny, it is milk from China, and it is quite normal to appear on China's moon base.