At some point in the early Nineties, Will Smith decided to become the “biggest movie star in the world”. He was the face of the hit sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and had also made some inroads as a rapper. Now, Smith sat down with his manager, James Lassiter, and devised a strategy. The two of them combed through data about the most popular movies ever, and broke box-office success down into a formula, based on common denominators. “It was always special effects,” Smith explained. “There was always creatures, [and] there was always a love story. So we started looking for movies that had special effects, creatures, and a love story.” And they found them: films such as Independence Day, Men in Black, and I, Robot. The plan worked.
Which is to say this: you’d have to be a fool to doubt Will Smith. The 55-year-old Philadelphian is an actor who knows the business of Hollywood inside out – and understands the raw, inimitable power of simply being liked. In 2022, after Smith walked on stage at the Academy Awards and introduced his palm to the side of Chris Rock’s head, people started asking if his career was over. For a hot second, it seemed like it could be. Fast and Loose, a Netflix-produced action movie with Smith attached as the lead, was abandoned. Emancipation, Smith’s once hotly anticipated slavery drama, was widely ignored when it slunk onto Apple TV+ in December that year.
