When Roland Emmerich directed Independence Day 30 years ago, he not only created one of the best alien invasion movies of all time, but also created the template for the modern-day disaster movie. It was such a massive hit that every alien invasion and disaster movie that came out after it was compared to Emmerich’s masterpiece. With Independence Day here and the 30th anniversary of this movie being celebrated at the same time, it is a good chance to look back on the film and everything it brought to the sci-fi genre. As part of its celebration, Emmerich and screenwriter Dean Devlin recently spoke about the movie and its place in cinema history.
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Shockingly, one of the most iconic scenes in the movie was almost cut, and it would have stripped the movie of one of its greatest moments. “I’ll never forget, after we made the deal, we had this big meeting with the studio, and we got in a room, and they said to Roland and I, ‘Well, you know we can’t really show the White House blowing up in a trailer with what happened recently with this terrorist attack on the Federal Building. It could cause a problem,’” Devlin told Space.com. “‘I said, ‘Yeah, but this is aliens, it’s not terrorists.’”
Roland Emmerich Ensured the White House Scene Stayed in Independence Day
The best part of the interview came when Roland Emmerich spoke up about the controversial scene. After Devlin argued that it was aliens and not terrorists, Emmerich said the one thing that the studio listened to. “So wait, you’re telling me that if we do this, it will cause an enormous amount of controversy and everybody will talk about our movie,” Emmerich said. “And that’s wrong, why?”
Knowing that controversy, when done right, can create buzz, Emmerich was allowed to keep this scene in the movie. Without it, the most iconic shot of the entire movie would have been lost, and even though the film would have remained a great one, it wouldn’t have had the same impact. The scene had the aliens start attacking monuments all over the world. The most important of these for the movie’s promotions was the White House blowing up and the President of the United States (Bill Pullman) flying away from the explosions to safety.
The studio didn’t want the White House explosion in the movie, but they didn’t have a choice when it came to what was in the original trailer. Emmerich had leverage when he made the deal for Independence Day, and that included complete control over the marketing. In that first 30-second trailer, played on Super Bowl Sunday in 1996, Emmerich showed the money shot of the White House getting blown up, and the rest is history.
Independence Day was still six months away, and this one shot helped ramp up the excitement that led to the incredible box office success that it enjoyed. The advertising paid off, and the movie made $817.4 million worldwide. It helped make Will Smith a massive movie star, and while the patriotic action and storyline were a big part of it, the White House explosion and promotions did the heavy lifting. Emmerich even said the studio tested a screening of the Independence Day trailer without the White House explosion, and they never mentioned it again.
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Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
