Not content to stand idly by and watch the Mayan prophecy fulfill itself in his disaster porn film 2012, Roland Emmerich recently spoke about the sequel to Independence Day, his 1996 alien invasion flick starring Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum.

Here’s what Emmerich had to say about the project:

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.

[Source] LatinoReview