Will Smith Is 'Too Expensive' for the 'Independence Day' Sequels

(Getty Images)Will Smith is too big a star to join the two planned sequels for beloved 1996 alien invasion movie Independence Day, at least according to director Roland Emmerich, who is very forthcoming about the reasons why.

"Will Smith can not come back because he's too expensive, but he'd also be too much of a marquee name," Emmerich told the New York Daily News while promoting his new movie, White House Down.

The first sequel is slated for July 2015, and while Smith is too expensive, maybe Jeff Goldblum isn't, because Emmerich followed up by assuring fans, "We have like maybe half of the people that you would know from the first film (in the script) and the other half people who are new."

Of course, after the box office failure of After Earth, and the bone-headed decision not to star in Django Unchained, maybe Smith needs to reevaluate what makes a movie worth doing. Oh well. At least we'll always have this...

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