Everyone likes to pretend. Some people like to pretend they’re married to Tori Spelling and Shannen Doherty is coming over for dinner and you they haven’t seen her in four years and they hope it isn’t going to be awkward and they hope the whole conversation won’t be about Jason Priestly again since now he’s married anyway.
I like to pretend what if I was running a movie studio. If I was, the one person I would absolutely sign to any movie would be Will Smith. This might seem like a no brainer you say since he’s a huge movie star with bigger ears. But think about it, Will has managed to not only open but carry every genre of movie to huge box office success. He’s done drama, action, sci-fi and comedy. With the exception of Bagger Vance he has never had a failed film.
He made a hit out of Wild Wild West, and not even Stephen Hawking could understand that pile of crap. A giant mechanical spider in the old west? That’s as anachronistic as wearing leg warmers in the sixties and working out to a Jane Fonda tape. And all his films make money overseas. Most of the time comedies don’t travel that well, but Hitch made more money in foreign territories than it did domestically. Adam Sandler (whose films never gross a lot overseas) is busy in his house right now scratching his head asking how Will does it, or he’s asking Rob Schneider to please stop showing up in his movies and to also move out of his house since his wife is beginning to get suspicious.
They always say there’s no such thing as a sure thing in Hollywood (unless it’s Hilary Swank after four whiskey sours). I would argue that the opposite is true when it comes to Will Smith. Part of it is his boyish charm and larger than life personality, but he also happens to make very entertaining movies. People want to forget their miserable lives. They want to forget the car payments and the fact that the mailman always manages to place the letters just outside the slot so they fall into that little puddle that never seems to go away even though it hasn’t rained in over a week. Will provides that escape for ten bucks.
His new film, I Am Legend looks to be another winner. He’s back in the same sci-fi action territory that made I, Robot a hit. I like watching Will kick butt. There’s something about his personality that keeps you rooting for him. It’s like watching Lardass at the pie eating contest in Stand By Me, there’s something about him that you can relate to. And what’s better than watching Will bust up a bunch of robots? That would be Will taking on a slew of zombies. Zombies are like drunk party crashers. They can’t walk straight, are always slurring their words and no one invited them. And the undead always look creepy or like Barry Manilow (I don’t think there’s a spot left on that guy’s face that has not had plastic surgery).
I’m hoping I can convince the wife, that both Bridget Jones and Keri Russell make appearances in I Am Legend so we’ll be there opening weekend. Will Smith, zombies and popcorn. If there’s a better way to spend a Saturday night it would have to involve watching Nicole Richie eat an eight stack of waffles in under four minutes. Since I wasn’t invited to Nicole’s baby shower I’m going to I Am Legend.
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