Back in 1996, Will Smith got to star in the box office hit Independence Day, which made just short of $1 billion at the box office. This movie saw Smith paired up with Jeff Goldblum as they looked to fight off a hoard of invading aliens. It was a phenomenal movie that helped propel Smith top superstardom following his role on The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air.
Interestingly enough, while Smith was the first choice for the role, it seems as though 20th Century Fox almost put the kibosh on his casting. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the film's director Roland Emmerich said that the studio didn't want Smith as the lead because they thought casting a black man would hurt the film's box office numbers in international markets. However, Emmerich fought hard to keep Smith and even threatened to go to another studio.
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“They said, ‘You cast a Black guy in this part, you’re going to kill foreign [box office],'" Producer Dean Devlin said. “Our argument was, ‘Well, the movie is about space aliens. It’s going to do fine foreign.’ It was a big war, and Roland really stood up for [Smith] — and we ultimately won that war.”
In the end, Emmerich and Devlin got exactly what they wanted, and as a result, the movie was a massive success. Needless to say, Independence Day is an example of how it's important to fight for your artistic direction.
[Via]