Independence Day Returns to the Top 10 Streaming Charts 3 Decades Later

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Thirty years after becoming a star on the TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith fought aliens in the 1996 movie Independence Day. Now, three decades later, that blockbuster film is popular again and climbing the streaming charts.

Released in the summer of 1996, Independence Day was a huge box office success, earning $817 million worldwide on a $75 million budget. Recently, the movie has gained renewed popularity and is now ranked at No. 10 on the AMC+ streaming charts, according to FlixPatrol. It also received critical acclaim, winning an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and a Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film in 1997.

In the movie Independence Day, Will Smith plays Captain Steven Hiller, one of the heroes who saves Earth from an alien attack. He works with characters played by Jeff Goldblum (as David Levinson) and Bill Pullman (as President Whitmore). The film’s cast also includes Judd Hirsch, Mary McDonnell, Robert Loggia, Vivica A. Fox, Brent Spiner, Margaret Colin, and Randy Quaid.

I remember when Independence Day first came out – it was a total phenomenon! Roland Emmerich, who directed, and Dean Devlin, who co-wrote it with him, really nailed that perfect summer blockbuster feel. And honestly, it still holds up and is a lot of fun to watch even now.

The popularity of Independence Day led to a follow-up film that brought back Jeff Goldblum, Vivica A. Fox, Bill Pullman, and Robert Loggia as their original characters. Although the first Independence Day received positive reviews (69% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 75% from audiences), the sequel wasn’t as well-received.

Independence Day Director Regrets Making a Sequel

The movie Resurgence received generally negative reviews, with a 28% rating from critics and a 30% rating from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite this, it earned $389.6 million worldwide. The film, which starred Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe, Jessie T. Usher, Sela Ward, and William Fichtner, cost $165 million to produce.

In 2019, director Roland Emmerich explained that he initially aimed to create a sequel to Independence Day that mirrored the original. However, Will Smith decided to star in Suicide Squad during production, forcing Emmerich to rewrite the script. He later regretted not halting the project at that point, as the original script was stronger and the revised version ended up being something he didn’t fully believe in. He felt he should have declined to continue making the sequel under those circumstances.

Independence Day is streaming on AMC+.

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2026-01-10 01:08