I’ll say this about Will Smith: I wouldn’t have pegged him for his last few projects. Since his lamentable attempt at catapulting his son into superstardom with AFTER EARTH, he’s appeared in weird cameos in ANCHORMAN 2 and WINTER’S TALE, did a serious con-man movie with Margot Robbie, shot the super, super serial football drama CONCUSSION, signed on to play freaking Deadshot in SUICIDE SQUAD, and now, he’ll be going back to ENEMY OF THE STATE territory by playing a man on the run in BOUNTY.
Paramount has bought a spec script titled BOUNTY from POWER writer/producer Sascha Penn with the former Fresh Prince attached. The plot has Big Willie Style as a Bostonian who is imprisoned for a murder he did not commit. He makes like Richard Kimble and escapes to prove his innocence, but the wife of the man he was accused of killing puts a $10 million bounty on his head. So he’s gotta race against time and clear his name before the cops, or one of the grieving wife’s dispatched collectors, gets to him first.
ENEMY OF THE STATE was Smith’s first R-rated flick after hitting it big with INDEPENDENCE DAY and MEN IN BLACK, and it remains a great example of the rapper/actor’s ability to earn our sympathies as an everyday Joe rather than as a someone who’s supercool, superhuman, or Muhammad Ali. I could see Smith evoking the same sympathy in broad strokes that Ford got with his mere handful of lines in THE FUGITIVE, and holding the screen down on his own just as well as he did in I AM LEGEND. Obviously, who they get as the bloodthirsty widow will be a crucial factor, but I can’t imagine the two will share more screentime than Ford got with Tommy Lee Jones (can we even hope for an exchange as solid as, “I didn’t kill my wife!” “I don’t care!”?).
Smith has got SUICIDE SQUAD coming up next, but if Paramount really wants to fasttrack this, it could easily be what he jumps onto when that wraps later this year. We should be hearing about possible directors between now and then. Given that they unfortunately can’t land Tony Scott, who should they get to direct Will Smith’s next go-around staying one step ahead of the law?
