Why Didn't Independence Day: Resurgence Have Press Screenings For Most Critics?
Reports suggest no screenings in the US and few worldwide, so does it suck?
Reviews for Independence Day: Resurgence are just starting to hit online, although you may notice that a lot of major, trusted publications aren't amongst those sharing their initial thoughts on Roland Emmerich's latest slice of disaster porn. And that's because they haven't seen it.
As reported by /Film and Forbes, the film hasn't been shown to any critics domestically, a practice that is normally only reserved for forced-franchise horror sequels and terrible British sitcom movies; there were no press screenings and the premiere was a reviewer-less event. And that's not all - while some international critics have seen the film, it's not been widely rolled out outside of the US either; in the UK Fox didn't put on a Multimedia Screening, the usual event where the majority of the non-broadsheet press see the film.
Does this mean Independence Day 2 sucks? Not for definite, but it's certainly a worrying sign. Conventional wisdom states that the earlier a film screens to the critical body (and the earlier an embargo lifts), the more sure of a good film the studio is; it's a movie where the press response will only help the box office takings. That's why Disney allowed reviews of Captain America: Civil War weeks in advance, but Warner Bros. waited until a couple of days before Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice to show the film to most critics. I've even seen studios lift an embargo prematurely when immediate word from a film is positive.
Based on the handful of reviews out there, Independence Day: Resurgence sounds like it'll do fine on sites like RottenTomatoes - the consensus is that it's got great destruction and flat characters - so why not show it? Even the likes of Fant4stic went through the proper channels. To not screen a film of this size at all (and not have any fan screenings either to pump up artificial hype) is pretty unprecedented and I would say silence is, if anything, going to be worse for business than a Rotten rating; at least bad reviews get people talking.
This is particularly strange given that Resurgence had been otherwise shaping up pretty nicely, as well as you'd expect from a late-in-the-day sequel to a defining nineties film. There's been a strong marketing campaign, with the usual run of trailers accompanied by a wide range of viral videos (we've had in-universe background, but also Wayne Rooney taking on aliens and Jeff Goldblum interviewing Jeff Goldblum), which suggests confidence in a box office smash, and while it looks ridiculous, it looks to be the right sort of of ridiculous. In a year full of duds, did Fox really think they've got something on a par with Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice?
Or are we seeing a shift in how blockbuster hopefuls work? Fox's other big 2016 release, X-Men: Apocalypse, suffered just last month in the face of average-to-bad reviews, making considerably less than Days Of Future Past, and that's just the latest in a long line of potential hits killed by poor word-of-mouth; Alice Through The Looking Glass bombed, Warcraft stumbled outside China and Batman V Superman seriously underperformed. In the face of that, why not just cut out the infection at the source, forcing most of the reviews back until the general public can see the film? It can't hurt, surely.
Maybe Fox know they've got a general crowd-pleaser on their hands and don't want it sullied by "snooty" critics. And if so, then perhaps Resurgence is the next step in the fan-critic divide we've been seeing recently, with audiences disagreeing majorly with and filmmakers arguing that the film is "for the fans, not the critics". As I wrote last week, this is becoming an increasingly fraught debate, dominating discussion of X-Men, Batman V Superman and Warcraft, and it's only getting more incensed; although it's not that simple, to not give reviewers a voice on a film is the ultimate way to tell the audience this is their movie.
Regardless of the real motivation, this has got to be to do with the fear of what bad reviews will do in a summer where few films have broken through, something I can see the logic of, but don't quite agree with. The only other explanation is that Will Smith is really in the film and they're desperately afraid spoiler-happy critics will dish the dirt with an obvious allusion. Although, if that's the case, then they've messed up. Captain Steven Hiller isn't Luke Skywalker. He isn't even Johnny Depp's character from TV's 21 Jump Street. He's the hero of a fun 90s action film.
And that's the weirdest thing about all this; this debate is circling an Independence Day sequel. Why is there all the fuss around a movie once called ID4Eva? I guess we'll all have to wait until Friday to find out.
Why do you think Independence Day: Resurgence hasn't screened to critics? Share your thoughts down in the comments.