10 Cinematic Universes That Failed To Happen

Another oddity that few people discuss, Independence Day was meant to become a cinematic universe, with the second movie in the franchise, Independence Day: Resurgence, intending to be the springboard that would launch the universe. The project began when both Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the original movies director and writer, started working on the sequel and envisioned a series of movies set against a backdrop of intergalactic war.

Released in 2016, Resurgence was not well received and suffered poor box office returns. The movie seemed to be sorely lacking the fun the first film had, while also missing one of the original leads – Will Smith. It didn’t help that the film concludes on a presumptuous cliff-hanger, with Brent Spiner’s Dr. Brackish Okun boldly stating they were going to ‘kick some alien ass’. Alas, no alien asses were kicked, and all future plans were put on indefinite hold.

The failure of Resurgence also kickstarted the slow and painful death of both Emmerich and Devlin’s careers. Devlin went on to direct and write Geostorm, the Gerard Butler led flop that has seemingly singlehandedly killed the disaster genre. Emmerich hasn’t faired much better, with his latest vehicle Midway, also proving to be a flop. Perhaps these '90s titans have emptied all the gas that was left in their collective tanks.