Will Smith almost lost out on his 'Independence Day' role because the studio didn't think 'a Black guy' would appeal to 'international markets'
- Will Smith almost wasn't cast in "Independence Day," the filmmakers told The Hollywood Reporter.
- Writer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich participated in an oral history of the film.
- "The studio said, 'No, we don't like Will Smith. He's unproven,'" Emmerich recalled.
Will Smith almost wasn't cast in "Independence Day" because studio executives didn't think he'd appeal to foreign audiences, the filmmakers revealed in a recent interview.
Director Roland Emmerich and writer Dean Devlin participated in an oral history of the 1996 blockbuster for The Hollywood Reporter, where they recalled that execs were worried about Smith's "unproven" star power.
"It was pretty clear it had to be Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum," Emmerich said of casting the film.
"That was the combo we thought," he added. "The studio said, 'No, we don't like Will Smith. He's unproven. He doesn't work in international [markets].'"
"They said, 'You cast a Black guy in this part, you're going to kill foreign [box office],'" Devlin recalled. "Our argument was, 'Well, the movie is about space aliens. It's going to do fine foreign.'"
According to Devlin, the debate over casting Smith was "a big war," and Emmerich even threatened to move the film from 20th Century Fox to Universal Studios if the "Fresh Prince" actor wasn't cast.
And while Emmerich said it probably wouldn't have been a "possibility" to switch studios, "it was a great threat" to make 20th Century Fox cast Smith.
"We ultimately won that war," Devlin recalled.
Disney, which acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019, didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
"Independence Day" follows a group of surviving Americans determined to take down alien invaders wreaking havoc on Earth.
Smith plays Captain Steven Hiller in the film, a Marine pilot who helps lead Earth's defense against the aliens. Jeff Goldblum plays an MIT engineer named David Levinson, with Bill Pullman, Vivica A. Fox, and Randy Quaid rounding out the ensemble cast. Goldblum, Pullman, and Fox all returned for the 2016 sequel "Independen Day: Resurgence."
In the years since its release, "Independence Day" has been widely regarded as one of the greatest Hollywood blockbusters of all time.