Trivia

Bill Pullman used the memory of a decayed tooth which was pulled from his mouth in order to come up with a terrified expression when speaking with the alien invaders.

Two scenes, one where a replica of the bus from Speed crashes through a billboard for the movie Stargate, also directed by Roland Emmerich, and one where a theater whose marquee reads "Coming Soon: Independence Day" is destroyed, were filmed but didn't appear in the final cut.

As is the case with many 20th Century Fox Films, the film cans for the advance screening prints and show prints had a code name. Independence Day was "Dutch 2".

Fox first wanted to open the film on Memorial Day and change the name to 'Doomsday' to avoid the fierce competition on July 4th.

The advertising campaign cost US$24 million. The airtime for the trailer shown during the Superbowl alone cost US$1.3 million.

The President's speech was filmed on 6 August 1995 in front of an old airplane hangar. The hangar once housed the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima exactly 50 years earlier on 6 August 1945.

Will Smith's squadron were stationed at El Toro air base. This is the same name as the air base from which the Flying Wing Bomber flew out of to drop the A-bomb on the Martians in the movie The War of the Worlds. El Toro Marine Corps Air Station was a real air base in Orange County, California, from 1943 until its decommissioning in 1999.

On the Special Edition DVD, delete scenes are replaced that explain apparent inconsistencies in the Theatrical Version: - Upon arriving at Area 51, Russell Casse searches frantically for a doctor for his son Troy. He states that he has "a problem with his adrenal cortex". Since we've seen Troy vomiting and feverish earlier, he could be suffering from either Addison's Disease or Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, both which affect the Adrenal Cortex and have vomiting as a symptom. - Miguel refers to Russell by his first name for most of the movie. A deleted scene reveals that this is because, as Miguel tells Russell, "You're not my father. You're just the guy that married my mother." This also explains why Miguel looks very little like Russell. - When David is driving to Washington DC to alert Constance, he tells his father, "She always keeps her cell phone listed for emergencies." When he calls her, she answers the phone and says, "David! How did you get this number?" A deleted scene explains how he tracked her secret cell phone number down by searching for various aliases she's used in the past - in this case, it was her married name. - When Jasmine is first seen dancing, it soon cuts to her saying, "I came to get my check and I got talked into working." If one wonders where her son is while she's working unexpectedly (no time to call a sitter), a deleted scene shows him and Boomer the dog in the manager's office waiting for her. This is part of the reason she quits - her boss yells at her for "bringing that kid in here."

Dr. Okun is a reference to Jeffrey A. Okun, one of the visual effects supervisors from director Roland Emmerich's previous film Stargate

The line, "Eh, fuck my lawyer," was improvised by Harvey Fierstein and the expletive was dubbed over with "forget" in the final cut.

Footage of fiery debris was captured on film after a pyrotechnics malfunction occurred on set. The footage was used as the falling wreckage of the "Welcome Wagon" helicopters.

Traditionally, Roland Emmerich's regular film crew gives the crew or cast member the nickname "Evil" if their name appears in the credits at the same time the music turns ominous. With this film, Julie Moran (who appears as herself) received the honors.

The initials of several model shop crew members can be seen as graffiti on a wall behind the tank that's parked on the freeway in Houston.

The alien spacecraft miniature was 65 feet wide.

The movie features, thanks to special effects, 3,978 F-18 Hornets, 52,278 pieces of debris, 3,931 alien attackers, 1,549 missiles, and 22,014 light balls.

According to producer/co-writer Dean Devlin, the US military had agreed to support the film by allowing the crew to film at military bases, consulting the actors who have military roles, etc. However, after learning of the Area 51 references in the script, they withdrew their support.

After the climatic battle, one of the F/A-18s that returns to the base can be seen with the tail code of 'VM'. This is the designation for Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 (VMFA-314) Black Knights, the same squadron that Will Smith flies with in the film and that gets massacred by the city destroyer that took out LA.

In the briefing room scene at Area 51 behind Hiller and Grey there is a night vision pan of the base. What you are seeing are actual shots of the real Area 51 taken by a conspiracy theorist from a place called "Freedom Ridge". The ridge was commandeered by the U.S. government in the late 90's and is no longer accessible to the public.

In the special edition Vivica A. Fox's character quits her job as a stripper. When she leaves, she says to her boss, "Nice working for you, Mario" in a sarcastic tone. This is a jab at producer Mario Kassar, who forced Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin to cut some scenes from their last film, Stargate.

The line "Elvis has left the building!", which Will Smith yells toward the end of the movie, is translated "Last train to Mikkeli has just left!" on the Finnish DVD. Mikkeli is a town in Finland.

In the scene where Cpt. Hiller (Will Smith) is talking to Gen. Grey (Robert Loggia) about retuning to El Toro, the giant screen behind them is displaying some sort of night vision display and the bottom of the screen is endlessly rotating through various numbers and stats. At one point, instead of numbers, the screen reads "And now I see with eye serene the very pulse of the machine - Wordsworth", an excerpt of a William Wordsworth poem entitled "She Was a Phantom of Delight."

The street names seen on David's laptop screen (Ashford, Volker, etc.) are the names of prominent crew members.

Not a single real fixed wing aircraft was actually in the air at any time in this film.

On the Bonneville Salt Flats, cast and crew wearing long pants still managed to get sunburns on their legs; the white salty surface reflected the sunlight up their pant legs.

VMFA-314 "The Black Knights," the squadron Will Smith belongs to, had been stationed at MCAS El Toro until 1994.

Jeff Goldblum's character is a passionate environmentalist. Roland Emmerich would later make an entire film about environmental disaster in The Day After Tomorrow.

Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich penned the script in four weeks. It was sent out on a Thursday, and they started fielding offers the next day. By Monday, they were in pre-production.

Most of the cast and crew, including Will Smith, were unpleasantly surprised to suffer severe sunburn on their legs during the filming in Utah of the Grand Canyon duel/crash scenes.

The film was banned in Lebanon under pressure from Hizbollah, because it included scenes where Israeli and Iraqi soldiers joined forces, in the montage where militaries around the world signed onto the U.S.'s plan to counter-attack the alien forces. In 1996 (and to the present day), Lebanon officially boycotts any form of entertainment that features Israelis.

The highest-grossing movie of 1996.

Jada Pinkett Smith turned down the role of Jasmine Dubrow because of scheduling conflicts with The Nutty Professor.

When David is searching the telephone directory, some street names include: Last Exit, Sub Wy, Drive Wy, Sky Walk, Hard Dr, Chuckjones Dr, Theeme Pk, C. Old Maurice, Window Jump, Onthe Rd, Guesswho Blvd, Yumyum Rd and for Connie- Heresheis Av.

William Fay:  co-executive producer can briefly be seen on the TV in the Oval Office as a SETI employee during the "Operation Welcome Wagon" scene.

Roland Emmerich:  [44]  The number 44 is seen on the headrest in Russell's F18 cockpit, several TVs are tuned to channel 44. When the ship above Area 51 is destroyed, just as it's falling to Earth, 44 can be seen in the flames on the side of the ship.

The visual effect of the giant alien ray gun exploding is simply the same footage of the Empire State building exploding turned upside down.

President Whitmore attacking the aliens would have been the first US commander-in-chief to lead troops into combat since James Madison took command of a rearguard artillery battery to cover the retreat of the US Army during the British attack on Washington, DC, in 1814.

The scene where the White House is blown up was used in the "Finale Scene" of the great movie ride at the Disney/MGM studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios) at Walt Disney World in FL. After the 9/11 attacks, the scene was removed and replaced with a scene from Armageddon after guest complaints.

A version with Russell Casse flying his bi-plane in with a missile strapped to its wing was scrapped because it implied that Russell flew into the battle planning to commit suicide since he could not launch the missile from his plane. The director wanted him to make the decision to sacrifice himself *after* he was in the air helping the cause.