Dean Devlin

Stories about travelers coming into town and doing good have been part of our storytelling since the Bible.

I've always lived by this philosophy, when it comes to conspiracies, never to attribute to deviousness that which can be explained by incompetence.

We've always had a simple philosophy in casting. We don't care if somebody's a big star or a little star. We just want the best possible actor for the part.

The great thing about adventure, when told correctly, is it is one of the few genres that everybody in the family can watch together.

There's a lot of superhero stuff out there and a lot of cop stuff out there. What we have very little of anymore is adventure.

The truth is, we were sick of, every time we finished a movie, having to start all over again from nothing, going to a studio, pitching an idea, setting up a new office.

We're so specialized now in our entertainment. It's nice to do a show where you're really circling back to this idea of, 'Couldn't there be a show the whole family can watch together?'

Filmmaking is a real democracy - it's up to the audience to vote with their tickets.

Independence Day,' ever since we did it, there's been enormous pressure to follow it up.

The scale of 'Independence Day' is much more than 'Stargate.'

As for 'Independence Day,' we never intended to do any films in that series beyond the first one.

Many years ago, I was actually hired to write the sequel to 'Independence Day.' And I wrote a sequel. And they paid me a boatload of money to go write this thing. And after I wrote it, I read it and I gave them back the money and I said, 'Look, this is an okay movie I just wrote. But it's not worthy of the sequel to 'Independence Day.'