It feels like for as long as there's been summer, there's been the summer blockbuster — those larger-than-life, action-packed flicks that heat up the box office and the pop-culture zeitgeist over the hottest weeks of the year. From "Jaws" to "Jurassic Park," "The Dark Knight" to "Top Gun: Maverick," those big-budget spectacles are just as much tentpoles of the warm-weather season as baseball games, beaches opening and the ice cream man.
And this summer marks the 30th anniversary of one of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters ever: "Independence Day," the 1996 sci-fi juggernaut that starred Will Smith, Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum and went on to become the highest-grossing film of that year, grossing over $817 million worldwide against a $75 million production budget.
