Independence Day: Resurgence

We always knew they were coming back. After all, what epic, era-defining blockbuster doesn’t get a sequel in this day and age? None. And Independence Day truly was one of the biggest movies of the 1990s, both in terms of grosses (it was the top earner of 1996, both home and abroad) and scope, with mile-wide UFOs descending on our planet, wiping out our most treasured landmarks, and trying to eradicate our species. A few brave heroes fought back and saved our world from extinction and now, 20 years later, most of them return to fight a new alien menace in Independence Day: Resurgence (except for Will Smith, he was busy). A cast of familiar faces (Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman) and newcomers (Liam

Like so many Hollywood blockbusters these days, Independence Day: Resurgence ends with a beginning. Before the dust has settled on the final conflict, the next conflict is already set in motion. Rather than tying a bow around the previous two hours of planet-leveling carnage, Resurgence immediately begins teasing another sequel.

Independence Day: Resurgence hits theaters this week, though you wouldn’t necessarily know it unless you’ve been keeping a close eye on this month’s new releases. Fox has no plans to screen the film for press in advance, so if you’re waiting to read some reviews before committing to see the sequel this weekend, you can go ahead and stop now. But Fox is still hoping to lure audiences in even without some positive early buzz, mostly via fun viral videos like these.

Why watch just a few famous landmarks get blown up when you can pay the same amount to see twice as many (maybe more?) of our beloved manmade monuments explode? 20th Century Fox is bringing not one, but both Independence Day films to theaters on June 23, giving you a chance to test your loyalty to Jeff Goldblum with an epic double feature.

The most iconic image of the original Independence Day is that of a giant spaceship hovering over the White House, filling it with energy until it explodes.

The trend in trailers right now is to make things shorter. Teasers for trailers. Vines for teasers for trailers. Even full-length trailers on YouTube now often start with a five-second tease of the trailer you are about to watch five seconds later. It’s hard to conceive of ways content can be chopped any smaller, but studios keep finding ways.

The original Independence Day wasn’t exactly subtle. It trashed the White House, the Empire State Building, and the Capitol Records building. It laid waste to huge swaths of the planet, all for the amusement of summer moviegoers. So how do you top that?

Why do audiences turn out in droves for epically proportioned blockbusters every summer? Is it for the ten-stories-tall feeling of spectacle, that rush of pure cinematic thrill that every cinephile spends their whole life chasing? To escape the mundanities of everyday life and turn to a plane where all is entertaining, orderly, rational, and tightly edited...

The summer movie season is about a month away, kicking off with Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War and continuing through August with Suicide Squad. There are other, non-superhero movies hitting theaters this summer, if you can believe it, and we have some new photos from those and several of this year’s other blockbuster offerings. You’re probably already properly excited for a lot of these movies thanks to their trailers, but if you’re eager for another sneak peek, these photos should do the trick.

About 20 years ago, the original Independence Day had one of the most memorable Super Bowl trailers of all-time. Today, Independence Day returned to the Super Bowl with a commercial for the upcoming sequel (subtitled Resurgence), but could it hold a candle to the original?