Will Smith won't be in 'Independence Day 2'?

In case you were wondering, Will Smith will likely not be on board for the Independence Day sequel slated to drop on July 4, 2016, the 20th anniversary of the original release.

I'm told reliably that Smith informed the studio that he won't be joining in on a sequel that the filmmakers hope to have in theaters for July 4 weekend, 2016. That marks the 20th anniversary of the 1996 original that grossed $811 million worldwide and launched Smith on a trajectory to become the world's most bankable movie star.

Now, this doesn't mean that the ID4 sequel can't happen. In fact, Fox is very keen to see it through and what studio wouldn't want another installment of such a big movie? When Emmerich and Devlin wrote the first draft before handing it over to The Amazing Spider-Man scribe James Vanderbilt, they hatched two distinctly different versions of the movie. Vanderbilt has been working on two separate scripts. One has Smith as the centerpiece, and the other takes the battle to the aliens without his cocky hero fighter pilot Captain Steven Hiller. I don't believe that Smith has had the final conversation yet with Emmerich, but that will likely happen shortly. I was told not to set this in stone, because Smith has been back and forth before on whether to make the movie, though I hear he is pretty much decided.

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The film is currently in development with original director and White-House-destruction fetishist Roland Emmerich at the helm. Independence Day 2 is being co-written by Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin.

The project was pushed back to 2016 in order to clear room for other blockbusters. At this point Jeff Goldblum is still set to appear in the film, along with Michael B. Jordan, who clearly was a little too young to be in the original. Looks like 20th Century Fox will have another box office success after a long wait for audiences.