"Independence Day" will finally return to theaters as a sequel, but its biggest star will not come along for the ride.

Reportedly, Will Smith will not take the lead or any other role in the long-awaited return of the alien invasion after nearly two decades. According to the Huffington Post, signing Smith would be too much money. 

"He's too expensive," director Roland Emmerich told New York Daily News on Saturday.

The 1996 thriller made Smith, who was a fairly new film actor at the time, into a bonafide movie star. But now, the stakes have changed given that the "After Earth" star comes with a hefty price tag, making it unlikely that he would return.

But that is not the only reason that Smith can't get "jiggy" in the film.

"...But he'd also be too much of a marquee name," added Emmerich, who is also at the helm of "White House Down" hitting theaters on June 28. "It would be too much."

On Thursday, 20th Century Fox had announced that they would bring the highly-anticipated reprisal to theaters on July 3, 2015. The move was a true surprise given that many fans were speculating that the chances of the film making it to screens was low with such a long wait.

But now that fans are sure that the alien adventure is returning, will Emmerich bring back any other cast originals?

"We have like maybe half of the people that you know from the first film (in the script,") he said, "and the other half of people who are new."

Bill Pullman, who played the U.S. president -turned- fighter pilot in the first installment, had already said that there was a role for him in the sequel. Emmerich co-wrote the screenplay with producer Dean Devlin and James Vanderbilt.

Past discussions about the movie had indicated that the lead character would be Will Smith's stepson, who could be played by Jaden Smith, according to Cinema Blend.

The sequel will both pick up immediately where the last film left off and twenty years later, reported Screen Rant.

With the second installment titled "ID Forever Part I," according to IMDB, there should be a follow-up part two in the works.