Back in 1996, “Independence Day” was a cultural phenomenon – Roland Emmerich’s movie smash hit made $817 million worldwide off a $75 million budget, scored positive reviews, and helped kick start a bunch of large-scale disaster and sci-fi films in the mid-late 1990s.

Twenty years later, the follow-up “Independence Day: Resurgence” had no such impact. Widely panned, the film was a major misfire which grossed $389 million from a $165 million budget and shot down any potential for a third entry which would’ve seen humanity take the fight to the aliens’ homeworld.

Turns out its not just plenty of viewers who have misgivings with the film, but the movie’s director himself Roland Emmerich does as well. Speaking to Yahoo this week, he was asked what inspired him to take another go at a sequel to “Independence Day” and Emmerich revealed that on his path to replicate the first film, things changed:

“I just wanted to make a movie exactly like the first, but then in the middle of production Will (Smith) opted out because he wanted to do ‘Suicide Squad’. I should have stopped making the movie because we had a much better script, then I had to really fast, cobble another script together. I should have just said no because all of a sudden I was making something I criticized myself: a sequel.”

The film was a 20th Century Fox title and thus became a part of Disney earlier this year, doubly scuttling any chance of a possible follow-up. Last year producer Dean Devlin said: “Currently, I personally have no plans of doing another one.”