Independence Day: Resurgence is a 2016 American science fiction action film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by Emmerich, Dean Devlin, Nicolas Wright, James A. Woods, and James Vanderbilt. A sequel to the 1996 film Independence Day, it stars an ensemble cast featuring Jeff Goldblum, Liam Hemsworth, Bill Pullman, Maika Monroe, Jessie Usher, William Fichtner, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner, Travis Tope, Sela Ward, and Angelababy. The film takes place twenty years after the events of the first film, during which the United Nations has collaborated to form Earth Space Defense, an international military defense and research organization. Through reverse engineering, the world has fused the power of alien technology with humanity's and laid the groundwork to resist a second invasion. Plans for a sequel to Independence Day began as early as 2001, with 20th Century Fox eventually green-lighting the project in 2014. Principal photography began in April 2015 at locations primarily in New Mexico but also in the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah, which were featured in the original. Independence Day: Resurgence was released in the United States on June 24, 2016, twenty years after the release of Independence Day, in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D, receiving negative reviews, and grossing $389.7 million worldwide at the box office. Twenty years after the devastating interstellar war against alien invaders, the United Nations has founded the Earth Space Defense (ESD), a global defense and research program that reverse-engineers alien technology and serves as Earth's early warning system against extraterrestrial threats. Civilization has been restored and relative peace among nations exists following the human race's victory over the aliens' attacks, and major cities around the world including Washington D.C. were rebuilt and modernized with amalgamated technologies. After establishing Area 51 as its headquarters, the ESD set up bases on the Moon, Mars, and Rhea, and orbital defense satellites above Earth, as fortifications against future invasions. ESD Director David Levinson meets with warlord Dikembe Umbutu and Dr. Catherine Marceaux in the African state Republique Nationale d'Umbutu. They travel to a landed alien saucer and discover that the aliens were drilling before sending a distress signal to their homeworld prior to their defeat. It is revealed that people such as former U.S. President Thomas Whitmore, Dr. Brackish Okun, and Umbutu are telepathically linked to the aliens' collective consciousness, following personal encounters, and have visions of an unidentified spherical object. An unidentified spherical ship emerges from a wormhole near Earth's Moon. Despite objections from Levinson, it is destroyed on the orders of the Security Council. Defying orders, American pilots Jake Morrison and Charlie Miller then collect Levinson, Marceaux, Umbutu, and U.S. federal controller Floyd Rosenberg on a space tug. They head for the wreckage in the Van de Graaff crater, where they recover a large container. An alien mothership suddenly appears, responding to the distress call, and proceeds to destroy much of Earth's planetary defense systems before landing over the North Atlantic Ocean, where it starts to drill down toward Earth's molten core for fuel that will destroy the planet in the process. Narrowly escaping death, those on board the space tug avoided capture and return to Area 51. Whitmore, Levinson, and U.S. General Joshua Adams' groups interrogate one of the aliens held in captivity at Area 51's prison facility from the war. They learn that the aliens exist in a hivemind and that one of their colossal Queens is commanding the invasion. Levinson hypothesizes that if they kill the supervising Queen, her forces will cease drilling and go dormant. An ESD aerial fleet, led by Captain Dylan Hiller, stages a counterattack, but they are caught in a trap within the mothership, leaving only a few survivors, including Dylan, Jake, Charlie, and fellow ESD lieutenant and Chinese pilot Rain Lao. In Area 51, Okun opens the rescued container and releases a giant white sphere of virtual intelligence. The sphere reveals that her mission is to evacuate survivors to a planet of refuge from worlds targeted by the aliens, whom she calls "Harvesters", and unite them in an attack on the Harvesters' planet. In the mothership, all surviving ESD pilots manage to escape by hijacking enemy craft; Dylan, Jake, Charlie, and Rain navigate two Harvester fighters to pursue the Queen's personal ship, which is heading to Area 51 to extract information from the sphere about the refugee planet. Knowing that the Harvester Queen has become aware of the sphere's location, the ESD hides her in an isolation chamber and uses a decoy in Jake's space tug to lure the Harvester Queen's ship into a trap. Whitmore volunteers to pilot the transport ship on a suicide mission, leading the Queen's ship into a trap before detonating a bomb, thus destroying the enemy ship by sacrificing himself. However, the Harvester Queen survives by using an energy shield and a battle breaks out. Initially, the ESD soldiers' weapons cannot penetrate the Queen's shield, but after the Harvester Queen lowers her shield to fire her own weapon, a critical hit by Whitmore's daughter Patricia deactivates her shield. This allows Dylan's party, which arrives just in time, to kill her before she can take the sphere. With the Queen gone, all the remaining alien fighters are rendered inactive, while the mothership stops drilling and retreats to space. Okun reveals that the sphere has asked humanity to lead her resistance and has offered them new technology in preparation for a potential counterattack on the Harvesters' homeworld.