Independence Day director Roland Emmerich revealed in a new oral history celebrating the film's 25th anniversary that he had to fight for the film to be released on July 4.
"I told the studio, 'There is this Tim Burton movie. It is a comedy. The comedy cannot come out first,'" Emmerich told The Hollywood Reporter. "'So we have to tie in Independence Day.'" The comedy Emmerich was referring to was Burton's Mars Attacks, which was scheduled to hit theaters in August 1996.
The director added that the film's planned release date was put into question after then-studio head Bill Mechanic said the title didn't go over well in tests. "[He] came to me and said, 'We tested the title. It's not working really well. We want to open this movie on Memorial Day,'" Emmerich explained. "I said, 'Tough luck. It stays Independence Day. It will be released on Independence Day.'"
During the same conversation, Emmerich and writer Dean Devlin also revealed that the studio wasn't on board with showing the White House being blown up by aliens in the film.
"One of the things we had early on was the idea of blowing up the White House in a TV ad," Devlin recalled. Emmerich added, "I had this idea that the ad is: the second of July, you see the shadows; third of July, you have the fire coming through; Fourth of July, the White House explodes. It was such a simple concept, and Fox hated it."
Devlin further revealed that Fox thought the scene would be portrayed as insensitive following the bombings by anti-government extremists in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Devlin noted that their argument was, "Yeah, but that wasn't done by space aliens." They ultimately decided to keep the scene and debuted it as part of the film's first trailer, which debuted during 1996's Super Bowl XXX.
Directed by Roland Emmerich, Independence Day starred Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Vivica A. Fox and Brent Spiner. Emmerich, Pullman, Goldblum and Fox also returned for the 2016 sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, which added Jessie Usher and Liam Hemsworth.
Source: THR