Will Smith Was Right To Turn Down 'Independence Day 2'
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottme...th-was-right-to-turn-down-independence-day-2/
Will Smith has apparently passed on 20th Century Fox’s planned Independence Day sequel.
According to Deadline, Smith has officially turned down offers to star in the long-gestating sequel, tentatively set for July 1, 2016, or almost 20 years to the day of the first film’s blockbuster theatrical release.
Fox claims that they have two story scenarios for the sequel, one with Smith and one without him. Whether or not Independence Day 2 will still happen with or without Smith, I hope he sticks to his guns: It’s the right call for his career to say, “No, thank you.”Aside from an easy payday and a probable notch on his box office belt, what good would ID4 2 accomplish for Smith at this stage in his career? If you recall, Smith somewhat panicked after Seven Pounds, a mournful and depressing character drama about suicide, make “just” $168 million worldwide. He signed on for Men In Black 3 arguably to set things right, just as he used Men In Black 2 in 2002 as a comeback vehicle after Wild Wild West, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and Ali. Said sequel’s $441m gross kick-started his “biggest star on Earth” (2002-2012) phase. This was when he was racking up massive grosses in a variety of genres, such as I, Robot, A Shark Tale, Hitch, The Pursuit of Happyness, and I Am Legend.
I Am Legend ($585m) and Hancock ($624.4m) were among his biggest hits, yet all it took was the alleged miss of Seven Pounds to send him scurrying back to the safety of a known franchise.
Men In Black 3 was surprisingly good, and it was within a whisker of becoming his second-biggest global grosser ($624 million vs. $624.4m for Hancock and obviously behind $817m for ID4). And he still had to fend off accusations of the film being a relative flop after it “only” opened with $69m over Memorial Day weekend and “ only” earned $179m domestic.
One year later, he missed with After Earth ($243m on a $130m budget) and he’s right back where he was after Seven Pounds with everyone arguing that Big Willie’s time has passed. So all Men In Black 3 proved was that there was a global audience for the Men In Black series. Star+concept for sure, but Men In Black 3‘s success did little to prevent After Earth from tanking. All it did was prove that Will Smith in an iconic role was good for his portfolio.
Did Harrison Ford magically regain his box office mojo after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Did Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines earning $433 million (quite a bit more than End of Days, The Sixth Day, and Collateral Damage) restore Schwarzenegger’s luster to his 1988-1994 peak? Bruce Willis’s periodic Die Hard sequels do little more than prove that Bruce Willis-as-John McClane is box office gold (or silver, as it were). Tom Hanks getting blockbusters out of Dan Brown adaptations means little more than audiences liking Dan Brown adaptations that feature Tom Hanks. And no matter how well Dumb and Dumber To performs, it won’t restore Jim Carrey’s box office draw to its peak 1994-2003 levels. It will just prove that audiences were willing to see a second Dumb and Dumber film with the original two cast members.
If, and this is a big “if,” the failure of After Earth was really the end of an era (as opposed to a bump in the road), then Will Smith wracking up massive grosses in Independence Day 2 will mean little more than audiences wanting to see Will Smith in Independence Day 2. It won’t mean that audiences want to see him in original films like the hurricane Katrina thriller The American Can or the heist caper Focus (which recently replaced Kristen Stewart with Margot Robbie) than they did prior to an ID4 2.
If the intent is for Smith to keep or regain his “biggest movie star in Hollywood” title, succeeding in original genre entries will do far more to cement or reaffirm his star power than reprising an iconic role in a predetermined blockbuster. Will Smith doesn’t need Independence Day 2 and he has little to gain from joining.
If it flops, and who is to say it won’t at this point, then Smith has much to lose in terms of standing and alleged bankability. But if it succeeds, it won’t magically restore an allegedly lost box office drawing power. More so than even Men In Black or Bad Boys, Independence Day doesn’t exactly lend itself to an organic sequel. Quite frankly, even if Will Smith isn’t as big a movie star as he was in his thirties, is that such a bad thing? Won’t the loss of that burden invariably free Smith up to do more interesting or offbeat work in the future? We have to stop expecting the stars of the 80′s and 90′s to still be as big a draw as they were in their (much younger) prime. No one stays on top forever, and arguably no one should. At the very least, Will Smith doesn’t need Independence Day 2 because he should no longer be forced to shoulder the burden of being Hollywood’s biggest star.
