Will Smith skyrocketed to being the biggest movie star in the world with Independence Day in 1996 and coincidentally became known as “Mr. July 4th” after a few years because his summer blockbusters came out that specific weekend for many consecutive years.
Although his success with the Men in Black and Bad Boys franchises seemed to make his career invincible, a string of dramatic and over-priced duds like After Earth,Concussion and Collateral Beauty, have diminished his once-coveted $20 million payday. Regardless, he’s still one of the most bankable actors out there.
But he just shockingly turned down this enormous highly-anticipated blockbuster that shocked everyone.
When Will Smith isn’t charming the pants off of you with his hilarious charisma, he’s making you laugh unintentionally with his new upcoming live-action reboot of Aladdin.
Disney released the first teaser trailer recently where Smith plays the genie and just like Robin Williams’ animated character, he was blue.
Twitter joked about his look with Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Blue Man Group and Arrested Development references. It’s not to say Aladdin is going to be bad, it is Disney after all and nobody in Hollywood knows how to make movies better than them, but Smith turned down another huge role.
Will Smith will not return as Deadshot in The Suicide Squad sequel.
Now, The Suicide Squad was far from universal praise. In fact, it was immensely disappointing especially after that trailer was initially released with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody blaring.
It genuinely looked like it was going to be incredible, but when the movie finally arrived it was far from that.
And while David Ayers helmed the original – a great director responsible for Fury, End of Watch, Street Kings and Harsh Times – James Gunn will take over the sequel.
Gunn was the mind behind Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 & 2 before he was let go by Marvel because of some offensive tweets that surfaced right before Volume 3 was set to begin production.
There was a petition by the main cast, pleading with the studio to not remove him as writer/director but they kept their hard-lined stance.
So Gunn hopped over to DC to take on the sequel. And given the success of his expertly crafted Guardians series, the project should be in great hands.
A hundred edits and a month later, we got what we got.
Given the history of DC movies in the last five years, it shouldn’t be surprising to assume that it could be a producer problem rather than the writer/director’s faults.
Still, Smith declined the role even though it would be for an obscene amount of money but he does have Bad Boys 4, Aladdin and Bright 2 in the pipeline so his career should be fine for now.