In the least surprising news you’ll read all day, blockbuster sci-fi classic Independence Day has returned to prominence on streaming. On July 4, no less. Can you believe it? Yes, of course you can, because it’s essential viewing in households all across the world today, not just in the United States.
Obviously, it’s proving the most popular in America, with FlixPatrol revealing that the 1996 battle against invaders from beyond the stars has become the sixth most-watched title on Prime Video. However, Roland Emmerich’s game-changing spectacular has also been making waves on Google Play Movies and iTunes, almost as if a lot of people got the same idea at the exact same time.
It’s been 26 years, and we’ve seen countless movies of a similar ilk arrive during the interim, so it’s often easy to forget just how important Independence Day was when it literally exploded onto the scene. Not only did it become the second highest-grossing release in history at the time behind only Jurassic Park, but it helped popularize the Super Bowl as the place to debut the first footage from a hotly-anticipated Hollywood extravaganza.
The marketing campaign was also among the first to end on a “money shot”, which in this instance was the destruction of the White House, while it additionally kicked off the next decade of big budget disaster flick, and served as the catalyst for Emmerich’s entire mainstream career as the Master of Disaster.
In short; Independence Day remains as fun now as it ever was, even if it tends to peak in popularity right around the titular holiday.