Bill Pullman has said that INDEPENDENCE DAY 2 could begin shooting within a year, with or without Will Smith.
Pullman, who played gravel-voiced President Whitmore in the 1996 original, will be reprising his role in one of two possible versions; either with The Fresh Prince or without him and could begin filming, as he puts it, ‘Within a year. Yeah, something like that I guess.’ Smith has declared that he’d be up for causing close encounters again as Captain Steven Hiller, who incidentally features in our Top Ten Movie Pilots list, right here. But he’s a busy, busy man, with BAD BOYS 3 reportedly in the works and no guarantee that he would have time. But Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich are keen to get the ball rolling with The PullMan, even offering to shoot around his schedule for ‘1600 Penn,’ a new NBC sitcom in which he plays, funnily enough, the President.
‘I worried about taking this part because it’s heating up. I thought, ‘I don’t know if I should do the comedy’ and I talked to Dean and Roland and they said, “No, do it. We’ll work around it. If it goes, we’ll work around it.”’
Fair play, guys. There’s no word regarding Jeff Goldblum’s involvement, which is surprising as David, his fast talking nerd, is just as integral as Smith’s pilot. But as Pullman suggests, there are two screenplays being proposed, so the law of averages says he’s got to be in one of them.:
‘The Will Smith part of it may be ongoing but I think there’s strategies for both. I like what I have to do in both of them. I’m not in an old age home in a wheelchair being wheeled out for one more moment. It’s a very interesting conception of what happens to Whitmore between then and when it picks back up.’
So the fat lady is yet to sing. But don’t get to excited, as this possibility may have less longevity than Harry Connick Jr. ‘Nobody’s holding their breath,’ says Pullman. ‘Because it’s been continually plagued.’ Also, who would go see it without Randy Quaid? Nobody. That’s who.
Source: Crave Online
