The most recent piece of Independence Day 2 casting news kicked off an almighty social media storm, with Maika Monroe seemingly stepping into the role once played by Mae Whitman. But unless someone has a weird personal animus against eight-year-old actresses, Mckenna Grace’s addition to Roland Emmerich’s should pass by without causing the same tumult.
The actress, a veteran of Disney’s live-action/puppetry show Crash & Bernstein, will slot in alongside fellow newbies Monroe and Liam Hemsworth and plays someone called Daisy. We don’t know what her character will be getting up to yet, but it’s highly unlikely she’ll be a fighter pilot.
The remaining cast members are a mix of other fresh recruits (Jessie Usher, Travis Tope, Joey King, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lance Lim, Sela Ward) and veterans of the first film (Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Vivica A. Fox, Judd Hirsch), hoping to fill the big Will Smith-shaped gap.
The film’s plot remains under wraps, but all signs point to a return engagement with the invading aliens from the original and humanity preparing to meet them with technology developed thanks to reverse-engineering the craft left behind last time. Carter Blanchard, James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright have each contributed to the script, with James Vanderbilt and, of course, Emmerich and his old mucker Dean Devlin, also having a say in matters.
Independence Day 2 will land Stateside on June 24, 2016, which gives belligerent aliens just over a year to upgrade their virus protection.