Studios Are Reportedly Placing Will Smith Tasks on Maintain

The fallout continues from Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock on the Oscars a bit over every week in the past. Going through an impending vote that would have gotten him suspended or expelled from the group, Smith resigned from the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences on Friday, writing in an announcement that his conduct was “stunning, painful, and inexcusable” and claiming he needed to “put the main focus again on those that deserve consideration for his or her achievements.”

Smith may nonetheless face further punishment from the Academy when its Board of Governors meets later this month. And the information will not be significantly better across the movie studios both. Based on The Hollywood Reporter, a number of completely different firms are starting to distance themselves from Smith, although not publicly.

Their sources declare that final week Netflix was in search of a brand new director for the movie Quick and Unfastened, which was to begin Smith. Its earlier director, David Leitch, left the undertaking the week earlier than the Oscars. “Netflix put out an pressing name for an additional director to take over a undertaking that includes the star who was closely favored to win greatest actor on the Oscars,” THR wrote. “However quickly after Smith’s assault on Chris Rock on the Oscars stage, Netflix quietly moved the undertaking to the again burner.”

As well as, Sony “will now pause” improvement on Dangerous Boys 4, per a THR supply. The film had been in “energetic improvement” with a script being written, following the success of Dangerous Boys For Life again in early 2020. “Just a few different tasks in pre-production are more likely to do the identical,” the article provides.

Whereas Smith’s profession will nearly definitely get well, it appears to be like just like the perennially in style and bankable star may have some bother lining up new tasks within the instant future. Or perhaps not — whereas Netflix and Sony have been supposedly slowing down work on Smith tasks, one other certainly one of his upcoming movies, a drama titled Emancipation, remains to be set for a premiere later this yr from Apple TV+.