Will Smith has had a busy week. Following Smith’s slap at Chris Rock at the Oscars for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, the actor has received a lot of hate (and some support) from Hollywood and the public. Since the awards event last Sunday, there have been a number of developments, the most recent of which being Smith’s resignation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Two of his planned films seem to have suffered problems now.
Will Smith was set to star in a Netflix thriller called Fast & Loose last summer, according to reports. However, it has now been revealed that Netflix has secretly placed the film on hold. As THR previously reported, this isn’t only a setback for the production; barely a week before to the Oscars event, director David Leitch had stepped out in favour of another Universal project. According to industry insiders, the studio competed with the streamer for Leitch’s services and won.
Netflix was apparently looking for a new director before the picture Fast & Loose, which was scheduled to star an amnesiac criminal leader, was placed on hold. According to the sources, the streaming service was prioritising this as the main actor’s performance in King Richard continued to get plaudits throughout award season.
One of Will Smith’s high-profile Sony projects seems to have been put on hold as well. According to THR, work on Bad Boys 4 has come to a halt. The highly anticipated sequel was earlier rumoured to be in the works soon after the commercially and critically successful third film was released in 2020. Smith was handed 40 pages of the script just before the Academy Awards, according to the trade.
Other projects in various stages of development are also in the works for the celebrity. Emancipation, his historical drama, is in post-production, however Apple TV+ has yet to announce a release date for the film, which was expected to arrive this year. There’s also Michael B. Jordan’s I Am Legend sequel, which was just announced.
Will Smith publicly apologised to Chris Rock after the Oscars, but he chose not to file charges. Since then, further purported facts about the eventful evening have surfaced, including the Academy’s assertion last week that Smith was asked to leave the concert after the incident. However, the organization’s claim has subsequently been debunked in a new report. Will Packer, the show’s producer, has also revealed what was going on behind the scenes at the time of the slap.
Will Smith’s career will be affected by the Academy Awards fiasco in the long run. However, given this current claim, information about his other financial ties may emerge sooner rather than later.
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