After Earth just bombed big time, and the blame falls squarely on Smith’s shoulders.
Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith at the New York premiere of their film After Earth on May 29, 2013
Via: Carlo Allegri / Reuters
Five years ago, Will Smith seemed unstoppable. He'd had a stunning, unbroken string of global blockbusters, from Men in Black II in 2002 through Hancock in 2008. A few of those hits — 2005's romantic comedy Hitch and 2006's character-driven drama The Pursuit of Happyness — were in genres Hollywood had written off as unbankable overseas, especially with an African American star. And yet both movies performed just as spectacularly well in foreign markets as they did stateside. With Tom Cruise's star fading and Johnny Depp only proving viable in Pirates movies, Smith's mix of big screen charisma, genuine acting chops, and show-business savvy had made him into the world's only true global movie superstar.
And then Smith made a strange, personal drama called Seven Pounds that (SPOILER ALERT) climaxed with his character committing suicide-by-poison-jellyfish.
And then he disappeared from movie theaters for four years, returning with a Men in Black threequel no one was asking for that had to halt production halfway through because the script needed such serious work.
And then he partnered with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan to make a glum sci-fi thriller called After Earth, in which Smith's son Jaden is alone on screen fighting poorly rendered CG creatures for most of the film.
That movie just opened in third place this weekend with an estimated $27 million, behind the Vin Diesel/Dwayne Johnson juggernaut Fast & Furious 6 and the enjoyably silly magician caper Now You See Me. By any reasonable measure, it is a bomb.
What. The hell. Happened?!
Will Smith and Jaden Smith in After Earth
Via: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures/MCT
If this was simply a case of the box office blues, things wouldn't seem so shocking. To be clear, Will Smith is still a major star. Despite After Earth's performance, any studio would still be thrilled to make a movie with him. And he has bounced back from high profile failures before — that six-year string of hits came after The Legend of Bagger Vance and Ali both tanked harder at the box office than After Earth did this weekend.
The blame for those earlier disappointments, however, did not land at Smith's feet the way it does for After Earth. Smith not only produced and starred in the film, but he received a sole "Story by" credit — he's said he conceived After Earth as a vehicle for him and his son while he was producing Jaden Smith's surprise 2010 mega-hit The Karate Kid. And to reiterate, Smith sought out M. Night Shyamalan — the man behind the uniquely awful Lady in the Water, The Happening, and The Last Airbender — to direct the film and pen the screenplay, with videogame designer Gary Whitta.
This is after Smith turned down the chance to star in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. As my former colleague Jack Moore put it:
