Movies
‘Independence Day 2’ Happens With or Without Will Smith…
Sounds kind of like a threat, doesn’t it?
The Playlist caught up with director Roland Emmerich who was quite honest when it came to questions surrounding Independence Day 2, so much so that he let it slip that there are “two versions” of the script that have been written.
Asks the site, there’s a version of the script with Will Smith‘s character and a version without? “Yes,” Emmerich confirmed. He also said that the script work by White House Down scribe Jamie Vanderbilt had been completed (on both versions, presumably). Somewhat optimistically, the director remarked that, “It’s looking good [for the version with Smith].“
There are two takeaways from this conversation, which are hinted at the earlier portion of Playlist’s interview in which Emmerich tells them that the film is “a daily battle…The budget, the schedules, the actors…” First, we can assume Smith would get the largest payday, and based on Emmerich’s aforementioned budget jab it we can also assume that there’s a chance they won’t be able to reach an agreement. So, having a script without Smith is incredible smart.
Or, it could be as simple as Smith’s schedule, which has to be pretty heavy even after the release of the atrocious After Earth.
Zach Cregger is no stranger to violent movies, with his first two at-bats in the horror genre yielding the films Barbarian and Weapons. But even those movies can’t compete with the level of violence on display in his next movie Resident Evil, he teases in a new chat.
Zach Cregger tells Empire Magazine that Resident Evil is “definitely the most violent thing I’ve done.” He teases, “You gotta go grotesque! I wanted to go all the way.”
“So it’s gnarly. It’s brutal,” Cregger continues. “A very bloody affair.”
He also tells Empire, “Fleshing out what [the Umbrella Corporation is] up to and how the T-virus works, that’s not what this movie is. This movie is about one dude’s journey on foot, fighting monsters. I don’t give a fuck about checking boxes. All I cared about was just telling a fun story. We step on the gas at about eight minutes in and never take our foot off the floor.”
Resident Evil opens in theaters and IMAX September 18 from Sony.
The film is being billed as “a thrilling — and terrifying — reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise” from the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Weapons).
Austin Abrams (Weapons) stars as Bryan, a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in a non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.
Zach Cherry (“Severance”), Kali Reis (“True Detective: Night Country”), Paul Walter Hauser (“Black Bird”), and Johnno Wilson (“Twisted Metal”) round out the cast.