Vivica A Fox feels Independence Day “was missed because Will Smith wasn’t brought back.”
Vivica A Fox has admitted she wasn’t thinking independence Day: resurgence was good and didn’t do justice to the original.
The 58-year-old actor played Jasmine Hiller, wife of Will Smith’s Captain Steven Hiller, in the 1996 sci-fi film Independence Day.
Fox reprized her role two decades later in director Roland Emmerich’s 2016 follow-up film. However, Smith was dropped from the sequel because he said at the time that he was unable to star in it due to scheduling conflicts.
Share your honest opinion about it resurgence in a recent interview with AV clubFox said: “I just didn’t feel like it was good and couldn’t do the first one justice.
“I really feel like we missed something by not bringing Will Smith with us [back].”
While she admitted that the second installment featured “most of the original cast,” Fox said she felt Smith’s absence was “the only true link missing in the success of”. independence day 2“.
Fox recalled worrying at the premiere about “how fans would feel about” Smith not returning for the sequel. “And sure enough, they blew me up on Twitter,” she added.
Will Smith in Independence Day and Vivica A Fox
(Getty Images and 20th Century Studios)
In 2021, to mark the 25th anniversary of the first film, Emmerich and producer/writer Dean Devlin spoke The Hollywood Reporter for an oral tradition of Independence Day.
During the interview, the two revealed that studio executives at 20th Century Fox initially refused to cast Smith.
“The studio said, ‘No, we don’t like Will Smith.’ He is unproven. He does not work in the international field [markets]Emmerich said, and Devlin recalled, “They said, ‘If you cast a black man for this role, you’re going to kill foreigners.’ [box office].'”
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However, Devlin and Emmerich were adamant that Smith should take on the role, arguing that “the film is about extraterrestrials in space” and would therefore “do well” in foreign markets.
Smith, along with Jeff Goldblum, Randy Quaid, Bill Pullman and Mary McDonnell, co-directed the 1996 science fiction film about aliens invading Earth with the sole intention of destroying it.
independence Day It grossed US$817m (£591m) worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of the year, surpassing blockbusters as well twister, ScreamAnd Impossible Mission for the top spot.