10 Things You Didn’t Know About Independence Day

6. There Was A Legal Battle To Get The Title

In 1983, Warner Bros released a movie called Independence Day. It was a little picture about an artist living in a small town, which made less than $151,000 in American box office receipts. Despite not being a hit, the existence of this film meant that Warner Bros had the rights to using Independence Day as an official movie title.

This understandably posed a problem for Fox when they bought Emmerich and Devlin's script years later, which despite being totally different in terms of story had the exact same title as Warner Bros' 1983 flop. Fox suggested that the film title be abbreviated to ID4, or changed altogether to Invasion or Sky On Fire. But Emmerich and Devlin wouldn't budge.

Instead they did a rewrite, adding a vital line to President Whitmore's motivational speech before the big final battle: "Today we celebrate our Independence Day!". This was the writers' way of trying to convince Fox on the importance of the title, and it worked. The studio then engaged in a two-week-long legal battle with Warner Bros in order to win the rights to the film's now iconic name.