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“We’ve always believed we weren’t alone. On July 4th, we’ll wish we were.”
That was one of many incredible taglines for the 1996 sci-fi classicIndependence Day. Directed by Roland Emmerich, the film was a big-budget sci-fi blockbuster that looked to give the classic B-movie alien invasion flicks of the 1950s the big-budget treatment with state-of-the-art visual effects. At the start of 1996, it was on nobody’s radar, but it quickly became THE event movie of the year. Anticipation was so high that the movie startedscreening a day early onJuly 2 because of the demand. Despite the mixed critical reactions, it became the second highest-grossing movie at the time, behind onlyJurassic Park. Not adjusted for inflation, it grossed $817 million worldwide.
Independence Dayhas since become a modern classic, a nostalgic favorite among younger Gen Xs and millennials who are fond of the film, particularly the incredible cast that included Jeff Goldblum, hot offJurassic Park,and a relatively new feature film actor, Will Smith. 20th Century Fox hoped to spin this nostalgia into a full-blown franchise 20 years after the originalIndependence Day: Resurgencewas released in theaters.It got even worse reviews than the first film and flopped at the box office, killing any chance for sequels. Why didIndependence Day: Resurgenceflop despite the first movie being so beloved?
Independence Day Marketing Felt Like an Event
Independence Day
Independence Day’s marketing is now the stuff of legends. Fox was aggressive in its marketing campaign, which was kicked off by one of the most memorable Super Bowl television spots in history. Paying $1.3 million for the ad, the commercial aired during Super Bowl XXX and featured the iconic shot of the White House being blown up. It didn’t need to sell the movie on star power; it was on the images, and that was such a striking one it became part of cinematic history months before the film opened while also starting the trend of movies taking out bigSuper Bowl commercialsthat continues to this very day.
The movie also opted not to show what the aliens looked like, which made the movie’s mystery even greater. Audiences would have to go to the theater to see what these alien creatures were. The marketing forJurassic Parkinspired this, and both movies' use of the mystery of what their creatures would look like became major influences on future sci-fi blockbusters like 1998’sGodzillaor 2007’sTransformers.
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With anticipation high for the movie, the weekend before its release, the Fox Network aired a half-hour special on the film. The first third of the special was aspoof news reporton the movie’s events, a sneak peek for audiences who were dying to see the film. Major television specials like this used to be a significant part of a movie’s publicity, helping raise awareness and making the movie feel like a bigger event.Even famed critic Roger Ebert noted how successful the film’s marketing campaign was.
There was also the release date. ReleasingIndependence Dayon the 4th of July holiday weekend made the movie feel like a much bigger event. It truly capitalized on the 4th of July weekend thatTerminator 2: Judgement Daydid so wonderfully five years prior. It inspired Columbia Pictures the following year to release another sci-fi Will Smith-led movie,Men in Black, over the Fourth of July weekend andhelped earn Will Smiththe nickname “Mr. Fourth of July Weekend.” Other sci-fi blockbusters likeSpider-Man 2,War of the Worlds, andTransformerstook from theIndependence Daymarketing book.
All of this paid off. Over five days of release, from opening on July 2 to July 7, the movie grossed $96 million, with Wednesday, Thursday (4th of July holiday), Friday, and Saturday all bringing in $17 million per day. It was the number one movie for three weeks of its release and remained in the box office top 10 for 15 weeks.It was an event movie that audiences kept coming back to see, a real crowd-pleaser. The same could not be said for its sequel.
Independence Day: Resurgence Felt Like More of the Same
Independence Day: Resurgence
2015 was the year ofthe legacy sequel, asJurassic World,Creed, andStar Wars: The Force Awakenslaid the groundwork for the new winning formula for box offices. Instead of reboots or remakes of classic franchises that dominated the 2000s and early 2010s, now it was about bringing back fan favorites in iconic roles. We’ve seen plenty withGhostbusters: Afterlife, 2018’sHalloween,Top Gun: Maverick, and 2024 looks to continue the trend withDeadpool & WolverineandBeetlejuice Beetlejuice.Independence Day: Resurgencewas one of the first major legacy sequels to follow this wave, although it was greenlighted before those movies became hits, so it was an early test example, and it didn’t take off despite the original film being a 1990s classic.
Independence Day: Resurgencefailed to capture the magic the original film had, partially due to marketing. The movie did have a Super Bowl spot that aired during Super Bowl 50, but it had already debuted its trailer in December 2015, just in time to play beforeStar Wars: The Force Awakensduring the holiday season.Independence Day: Resurgencenever had a big money shot moment its trailerscould have, like the original film, and instead opted to sell “bigger destruction,” but nothing that ever stood out as iconic or what other blockbuster movies weren’t doing at the time. Whereas the first film felt like something audiences hadn’t seen before, the second film appeared more of the same.
The movie could never replicate the mystery of what the aliens looked likein the first movie, so now they tried to market the film’s star power. They emphasized returning cast members like Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman, but it only highlighted the notable absence of Will Smith. Smith did not reprise his role due toscheduling conflicts withSuicide Squad(which would open six weeks afterIndependence Day: Resurgence). The movie decides to kill him off-screen between movies, leaving many viewers who did end up seeing the movie disappointed. While Will Smith was not a selling point star for the first film,his exclusion in the sequel was a notable absence.
As for the opening weekend,Independence Day: Resurgencedidn’t even open on the 4th of July weekend. It instead opened in theaters on July 27, 2025, a week before the July holiday weekend. Why it didn’t take the 4th of July weekend is unknown, as the movies that did open on that weekend wereThe BFGandThe Legend of Tarzan, both films that were crushed byFinding Doryin its third weekend, and the movie that also beatIndependence Day: Resurgence. Not releasing the film on the 4th of July holiday weekend felt like a sign of defeat by the studio.
Independence Day: Resurgenceopened with $41 million in its opening weekend, less than what the original film did in its three-day opening weekend. It ended itsdomestic run with $103 million, which is what the first movie made in less than a week of release, and its worldwide total of $389 million was only $80 million more than the first film made at the domestic box office in 1996 at a much lower ticket cost.It was one of many high-profile box office bombs in 2016that seemed to signal a shift in Hollywood.
Independence Day Is Better Than Most People Give It Credit For, But the Sequel Is Worse
Independence Dayoften gets referenced as a “big dumb action movie,” and it is that proudly. Its characters are not the deepest, and at the end of the day, it is about making a big, grand spectacle to dazzle audiences and have them leave the film having had a good time. Yet the film did not have that many repeat viewings at the box office or still stick around as a holiday classic without some level of lasting importance. It seems like a movie that would only be ideal on a big screen, but plenty of people watch it on television or home video around the 4th of July holiday.
While thecharacter work inIndependence Dayis broad, they are all memorable. The three leads, Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum, all bring charisma to the lead characters, while actors like Judd Hirsch, Harry Connick Jr., Vivica A. Fox, Mary McDonnell, Randy Quaid and Margaret Collins all elevate what might be stock characters on the page to beloved memorable characters that the audiences can easily remember.The film is filled with great quotesthat have become part of the pop culture lexicon, and the overall feeling of stopping what feels like impossible odds makes for an exciting thrill ride.Independence Daystill plays so well after all these years, and audiences feel nostalgic for this type of movie.
Meanwhile,Independence Day: Resurgenceis so unlike the original film. Whereas the first movie is a time capsule of 1990s optimism and a strong concept stand-alone film, the sequel is everything wrong with modern Hollywood in trends that continue today.It is an attempt to turn a movie into a franchise by expanding it out with lore and backstoryand only telling half a movie with it ending on a cliffhanger, setting up a sequel that will never come.
Independence Day: Resurgenceis taking a beloved piece of 1990s action cinema and attempting to morph it into a 21st-century multimedia blockbuster tent pole franchise. Audiences watching this new good franchise filmmaking,like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, could see when it was poorly done.Independence Day: Resurgencewasn’t just offering a worse version of the original 1996 film, but a worse version of franchise teasing than what they could see from other movies likely playing in the same cinema.
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That also extends to the actors in the film.Independence Day: Resurgencemight have brought back Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman, but it also told who they didn’t bring back.They did not bring back Margaret Colin, despite her character being a big part of the first film, but they found a way to have Brett Spiner’s character, Dr. Brackish Okun, return despite the first film killing him off, only to retcon it for the sequel.
The film features a grown-up version of Patricia Whitmore, but instead of having her played by original actress Mae Whitman,the role is recastwith Maika Monroe. Meanwhile, the film beefs up the role of grown-up Dylan Hiller to fill in for the fact thatWill Smith is not present, but instead of bringing back the original actor Ross Bagley,they also recast with Jessie T. Usher. Vivica A. Fox returns, but her character is killed off. Unless you were a white male lead from the first film, you could either be excluded from the new movie or be recast with someone cheaper or someone the studio thought would be more marketable.
The entire enterprise behindIndependence Day: Resurgencefeels cynical, which stands in sharp contrast to the optimism of the original film. That, at the end of the day, might be the biggest reason.
Independence Day Was a Movie of It’s Time That Could Not Be Replicated
WhenIndependence Daycame out in 1996, it was an interesting time for the world. In terms of American politics, it felt like all major global conflicts had ended. With the Cold War gone, franchises like James Bond were trying to find their place.Independence Daytapped into something permeating the culture.It was an optimistic movie that looked toward global unityand spoke to the can-do attitude that everything would be alright. Instead of real-life villains, our movies created fictional foes for us to defeat or made exciting thought exercises in avariety of disasterslikeTwisterorArmageddon. The idea of major landmarks being destroyed was something fun to watch on the big screen, where just five years later, on July 16, 2025, that image would bring incredible horror.
Independence Day: Resurgenceopened in 2016 to a much different global and cultural climate. People had lived through years of global conflict, while superhero movies had dominated the big-budget spectacle. Alien invasions were still popular, but they were now films in the backdrops of extraordinary individuals stopping them, likeThe AvengersorTransformers. The trailers forIndependence Day: Resurgencesold big destruction, something audiences could also see in the trailers for 20th Century Fox’s ownX-Men: Apocalypseat the same time.
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The movie opened in theaters the very day the vote for Brexit passed. It was in the middle of an election year between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The global unity thatIndependence Dayseemed to hint at in 1996 now seemed further away than ever before. IfIndependence Daywas the right movie at the right time, thenIndependence Day: Resurgencewas the wrong movie at the wrong time. It also didn’t help that the film itself was just not good.
Now, almost 30 years after the release ofIndependence Dayand nearly 10 years after the release ofIndependence Day: Resurgence, the legacy of both movies is clear. The first film is still a classic piece of American cinema that will be quoted at BBQs and pool parties every 4th of July, while thesequel seems to have been largely forgottenand ignored by everyone.Independence Dayis streaming now onHulu.Independence Day: Resurgenceis available to rent onPrime VideoandApple TV.
