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Will Smith's 'Bad Boys 4' & 'Fast and Loose' reportedly held up after Oscar slap
At least two of Will Smith's upcoming movie projects have been reportedly moved to the back burner.
It’s been just over one week since Will Smith derailed the Oscars by jumping on stage and slapping Chris Rock after the comedian made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
The joke — a reference to Demi Moore shaving her head in G.I. Jane — angered Smith because Pinkett Smith has alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss. Smith has since apologized for his actions and resigned from the Academy. “Change takes time and I am committed to doing the work to ensure that I never again allow violence to overtake reason,” he said in a statement.
Hollywood and the internet, however, are still grappling with the event, and it looks like Smith’s slap may be having a tangible impact on his career.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, at least two of Smith’s projects have been delayed since Oscar night. The first is Bad Boys 4, which was in active development with Smith already having 40 pages of the script in hand before the incident. Post-Oscars, however, that project has reportedly been put on pause.
Another project of Smith’s — Fast and Loose — has also reportedly been deprioritized. The Netflix movie had Smith starring as a crime boss who loses his memory after an attack, and then finds out that he was actually a double agent for the CIA. The project had lost director David Leitch a week before the Academy Awards, but Netflix was actively seeking someone to replace him. After the Oscars, however, the streamer has "quietly moved the project to the back burner," according to THR.
No word yet on how or if some of Smith's other projects will be affected. Emancipation, an escaped slave drama at Apple TV+, is currently in post-production. The streamer had announced that it would come out in 2022, but there’s been no news of a release date. He also has an I Am Legend sequel in the early stages of development with Michael B. Jordan.
Given the damage the slap has done to Smith’s reputation, it wouldn't be out of the question to hear about more of his projects being affected. Whether he’ll recover in the long term remains to be seen, though it does look like his career has been impacted in the short-term, at least.
