Last week, AMC made thousands of drunk 30-somethings ecstatic when the network aired the 1996 cheese-and-corn casserole of an action film, Independence Day, starring Will Smith and Bill Pullman, in the wee hours of America’s Independence Day. Despite being horrendously written, with more plot holes than amateur porn, ID4 has kept a pop cultural wet soft spot with enough people that we don’t actually mind staying up past our bedtimes just to see Randy Quaid fly his plane up an alien warship’s ass.

Also, it’s worth noting that ID4 grossed more than $306 million in the U.S. and another $511 million around the world – presumably because other countries wanted to make sure America would save their butts from the aliens – because it shouldn’t shock anyone that 16 years later, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin are going to make a sequel. I mean, we heard the rumors, but they’re dead serious.

“I can tell you that Roland and I have been working together for the first time in 11 years and we’re very excited about the idea of doing it,” Devlin said during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “Whether or not we can make this happen, if we can get all the pieces to come together, that’s gonna be challenging. But creatively, for the very first time since we did the original, I feel we have a worthy concept, a worthy path to go.” (Via THR)

I can see it now… Captain Steven Hiller and his stripper wife, Jasime Dubrow-Hiller, are living the good life in retirement, while their son, Dylan Dubrow-Hiller, is serving in the U.S. Air Force. Meanwhile, Major Mitchell is now the President of the United States, with General William Grey serving as his Secretary of Defense.

Wait, is Robert Loggia still alive? Yeah, I think so. Anyway, so President Whitmore is running the United Nations these days, because he only saved the entire free world, thankyouverymuch, and he’s not seeing eye-to-eye with President Mitchell’s new policy on a global economy. As things come to a heated debate in front of the leaders of the world powers, the aliens are all like, “Remember us, bitches?” And this time Russell Casse isn’t around to kill himself for humanity.

And, if there’s time, a golden retriever will jump from car-to-car to avoid a massive fireball.

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