According to reports, one of the projects on hold is the fourth Bad Boys movie.
The aftermath of the Oscars continues to be felt this week.
Just a few days ago, Will Smith voluntarily resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who have yet to announce if any further consequences of the actor slapping Chris Rock mid-ceremony are on the way.
Smith still took home the Best Actor Oscar for his role in King Richard, and it is usually at this time in a performer’s career when they become inundated with future offers and prospects.
However, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the opposite is currently happening for Smith, with reports that at least two of his upcoming projects have been put on hold indefinitely while producers wait to see how things continue to play out.
One of those projects is said to be Bad Boys 4, for which Smith had already received the first 40 pages of the script. 2020’s Bad Boys For Life became a bit of a surprise critical and commercial hit, scoring 77% on Rotten Tomatoes (higher than the combined score of the first two Bad Boys movies), and banking $426 million worldwide (again, higher than the combined total box office of the first two movies).
The other project reportedly on hold is Fast And Loose, a thriller in which Smith would play a crime boss with amnesia. David Leitch (John Wick, Hobbs & Shaw) stepped away from the project just a few days before the Oscars ceremony, and producers at Netflix had been in the process of finding his replacement, but are reportedly putting the movie on pause in light of recent events.
The next confirmed Will Smith movie which will definitely be released is Emancipation, which finished primary filming in August 2021 and is due for release on Apple TV+ later in 2022. Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer), it tells the true story of a slave (played by Smith) who escapes a plantation in Louisiana, avoiding hunters along his journey north to join the Union Army.
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