How Bill Pullman's Independence Day Speech Changed The Title Of The Movie
"Independence Day" was not always going to be the title of Roland Emmerich's 1996 mega-blockbuster movie. Over the German director's four decade-plus career, he's been partial to single-word titles like "Godzilla," "2012," and most recently, sci-fi disaster extravaganza "Moonfall." When it came time to tell the story of the mighty resistance to a global alien attack, the title was going to refer to the first offensive and not the Earthlings' counterattack; the studio wanted to call the movie "Doomsday" (not to be confused with Neil Marshall's 2008 post-apocalyptic action picture of the same name).
Bill Pullman stars in the film as one of the great movie Commanders-In-Chief, President Thomas J. Whitmore. It's on Whitmore's watch that the alien warships converge over Earth's major cities and blow most of them to smithereens. Though he's forced to flee to Nevada's Area 51, Whitmore commands a final counterattack with the remaining fighter jets available. The pilots are young and few; the stakes are sky-high. He grabs a mic and calls for unity, citing the day's date (July 4th) as not just an American holiday, but a global one in which mankind asserts (with missiles) "our Independence Day." See one of the greatest big-screen presidential speeches of all time here:
President Whitmore then walks the walk, personally leading the squadrons into "the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind" and, after some absurdly fun fight sequences, wins one for humanity. Like the story's concept itself, the speech was specifically centered around the American day of independence; according to the film's star Pullman, the speech would end up solidifying "Independence Day" as the film's title.
'Today we celebrate our Independence Day!'
According to a 2016 Guardian interview, Emmerich, was influenced by the famous off-the-cuff speech delivered by Robert Kennedy following news of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. "He wasn't going from notes," Emmerich said. Rather than calling for citizens to "tame the savageness of man" and go home, President Whitmore's call to action was more violent — and the impending annihilation of man certainly called for it.
Looking back on the movie with Cinemablend during a press day for "The High Note," Pullman revealed that 20th Century Fox insisted the movie be called "Doomsday," but Emmerich and co-writer/producer Dean Devlin changed the shooting schedule to prioritize the iconic speech scene in the hopes that the studio would finally back off and accept "Independence Day" as the title:
"Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich were in contention right then with Fox about the title. I think it was gonna be 'Doomsday.' It's what Fox wanted, and it was a title that was typical of the time [for a] disaster movie. They really wanted 'Independence Day,' so we had to make the speech really good. And then they cut it together, and a couple of nights later, Dean came to my trailer, and he said, 'Do you wanna see it'? ... So he popped in the VHS, he showed me the cut of the speech, and I went 'Holy Mother, they have got to name this movie 'Independence Day.” And they did."
"Independence Day" invaded theaters, scoring an $817 million box office payday, making a splash big enough to influence the summer blockbuster for decades. There was a middling sequel in 2016, but we don't talk about that, so enjoy Pullman's SNL monologue where he mentions his sex symbol status in the wake of the movie instead.