Vivica A. Fox has reportedly joined the cast for the Independence Day sequel, which is due to hit theaters right around the first film’s 20th anniversary.
Fox will join fellow original cast members Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman for the new movie, but Will Smith won’t be starring this time around; Liam Hemsworth will reportedly be taking on the action-hero role.
“Will Smith cannot come back because he’s too expensive, but he’d also be too much of a marquee name. We have like maybe half of the people that you would know from the first film (in the script) and the other half people who are new,” director Roland Emmerich said in 2013.
Vivica tweeted the news about her role this week, sharing a photo of herself with Emmerich, and said she is “blessed”.
It's official that I'll b back 4 #IndependenceDay2 sequel playing #Jasmine #LegitimateCareer #NextLevel #Blessed😉 pic.twitter.com/2Ajj4XQ3aa
— Vivica A. Fox (@MsVivicaFox) March 24, 2015
Fox, who most recently appeared on Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump, made headlines earlier this year with her ongoing feud with Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kenya Moore. The duo traded barbs on the show several times, with Moore saying at one point that “Bosses don’t cry in the boardroom”, a comment aimed at Fox.
“I saw that little cheap shot she tried to make. I’m an emotional creature, I’m a woman, and I’ve never been ashamed to show my feelings and that I care,” Fox told TheWrap in February.
According to a 2013 Screenrant article, the Independence Day sequel will take place in an alternate reality, but will be in present day.
The sequel will pick up in real-time, some twenty years after the first movie. However, co-writers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich (the latter is returning to direct) have revealed that ID4-2 takes place in an alternate present-day reality, where humanity has spent the last two decades harvesting the alien technology featured in the first movie.