Not sure how often people have to repeat that he asked for $50m for both sequels and not only this one. $25m per movie, not $50m. 

MIB3 still made $624 million ... it probably would've made half that without Will Smith.

Smith hasn't chosen the best roles since iRobot.

If I was producing ID4-2 I'd have cut the filming budget to $160 mill (c'mon, how much CGI do you need?) and hired Will Smith at the $25 mill.

Still too much.

MIB3 would have probably been more profitable without him. $375M (including marketing) for $624M? Yeah, that's a flop. No wonder Sony are rebooting the franchise.

And they'd have to drop the budget to $140M to hire Wii Smith. Not to mention residuals.

Saw this tonight. (My Cinema tends to lag behind.)
It is certainly a good popcorn flick... And they certainly dialed down the American-hoo-haa-brovado whilst dialing up the Sci-fi, which is great for a Sci-fi nerd like myself even if their were some giant gaping scientific holes.
Allot of scenes were playing homage to the original film which I thought was fantastic.

The story premise also sets itself up really well for a massive franchise, which has me excited to see where they will take it. Provided this film is a success.

But there were some glaring issues that I won't go into related to the story due to spoilers and such.
It also misses some of it's humor from the first film, which to me isn't an issue.

All in all, I would be surprised if this film doesn't do well. Having the old cast help transition to the new cast for future titles is good too, something that StarWars is also doing.

Even if it turns out to be a disappointing movie, they will surely make a profit on it. BTW isn't 200 million the average cost now for big blockbuster movies?

The box office numbers are revenue and not profit.  The movie would need to make $50m more at the box office, which would earn the studio about $25m (the theatres get the rest).  This is also assuming that Will Smith's $50m contract was $25m per film.

I would say $150m-$200m is "normal" now If it has some CGI and/or big action scenes and $250m for really big movies. 

Sure, we have movies like Deadpool costing only $65m or something like that but that movie wasn't really planned as huge blockbuster making so much money. 

China.

saw it in a theature too today.

I thought it lacked the charm/soul/humor of the original.

Its not a better movie than the first one is.

I felt like the intire thing was just made, so they could do a sort of starship troopers concept, of takeing the fight to them (heres a 2nd movie, we made it so we could make a 3rd one).

It was more realistic than the first one, not as cheesy but still... felt off.

This is a "good" movie, not a great one. 

The first Independance day, was a great one.

I really think the plotline & acting, let this movie down.

Too much focus on makeing  everything bigger, and more explosions, while forgetting that makeing a good movie means also telling a good story.

Typical american movie style, lack of substance? just add more explosions & action! look at those special effects!

The high point of this movie, is in the start of it, when the aliens show up again.

The gravity effect of the ship on the planet was cool as all hell..... that was well done.