The film focuses on disparate groups of people who converge in the Nevada desert in the aftermath of a worldwide attack by an extraterrestrial race of unknown origin.

[2] According to Emmerich, the third film will depict an intergalactic journey, possibly set a year or two later since he wants to maintain the same group of people, especially the young characters.

"[6] Following this, Ryan Scott at MovieWeb translated the poor reception of the second film and Devlin's comments as meaning Independence Day 3 will likely not happen, also noting that 20th Century Fox merging with The Walt Disney Company (meaning Disney will be in control of Fox's franchises) would make it even less likely that a third film would be pursued.

The first three novels were originally published in the 1990s based on the 1996 release of the first film, and were republished in March 2016 as a single-volume edition (The Complete Independence Day Omnibus).

The novel presents the film's finale as originally scripted, with the character played by Randy Quaid stealing a missile and roping it to his cropduster biplane.

Following the film's success, a prequel novel entitled Independence Day: Silent Zone was written by Molstad in February 1998.

[19] The novel focuses on the back story to Resurgence over a period of 20 years after the "War of 1996" and introduces new characters such as orphan Jake Morrison and tribe leader Dikembe Umbutu, whose ground battle in Africa reveals that aliens managed to land the only surviving city destroyer somewhere in the Congo during the initial attack.

It also follows David Levinson's ascent to the head of the Earth Space Defense (ESD), Steve Hiller's son Dylan and his friendship with Jake and Patricia Whitmore, and Steve's untimely death caused by an accident while testing aircraft with alien technology designed by the ESD.

Independence Day: Resurgence is the novelization of the film of the same name written by Alex Irvine, and the fifth book in the series.

The magazine contains exclusive interviews, production information, and behind-the-scenes features, complete with color photos.

On August 4, 1996, BBC Radio 1 broadcast the one-hour play Independence Day UK, written, produced, and directed by Dirk Maggs, a spin-off depicting the alien invasion from a British perspective.

Dean Devlin gave Maggs permission to produce an original version, on the condition that he did not reveal certain details of the movie's plot, and that the British were not depicted as saving the day.

[23] Independence Day UK was set up to be similar to the 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds—the first 20 minutes were presented as if live.

[24] On the original www.id4.com 1996 website, 20th Century Fox produced & Media Revolution (defunct) developed, 4 mini games playable in either the web browser with Shockwave Plugin or as downloadable executables.

The standard edition involved flying an F/A-18 against incoming Alien Attackers, at the end of each of the 5 levels you could take out the Mothership & could play as Cpt.

The game was developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Fox Interactive for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and mobile.

The game was space based first person shooter using human alien hybrid technologies fighting above various planets in the solar system.

Promoting the release of the second film, 20th Century Fox produced a website where you could use satellite imagery of your neighborhood and see what it would look like after an alien attack.

[27] Promoting the release of the second film, 20th Century Fox produced a website where you could enlist the fictional Earth Space Defense (ESD) and receiving new ranks by completing different challenges and games.

Each game while based on the fight against aliens tied back to real world professions within the US Army like Microbiologist & Cryptologic Network Warfare Specialist.

The game was developed by Zen Studios and Fox Digital Entertainment and was available to download for free on the iTunes App Store, Google Play and the Amazon Appstore.

The player worked to unlock & upgrade Earth space fighters from different nations to fight Aliens around various locations in the Solar System.

[28] Each action figure, vehicle or playset of the first wave came with a 3½" floppy disk that contained an interactive PC game (Mac version could be ordered via mail).