According to a report in the UK Sun, a post-Oscars-slap Will Smith is planning to bring his Hollywood career back from the dead with a sequel to his 2007 zombie hit I Am Legend.
The publication reports “the script is being worked on” and is being seen as a comeback vehicle for the actor, who would reprise as scientist Robert Neville.
Smith has stayed out of the public eye since the infamous on-camera incident last March.
A source tells the paper, “The concept is still to be signed off by Warner Brothers, but there has been no indication that Will is off the project.”
Smith’s Westbrook Entertainment still creatively has the reins at this stage, the source notes. “The reality is that Will will make a comeback at some point and it will be simply down to which studio will be the one to take a chance on him.”
Will’s career has been put on ice since the incident, which began with a joke by presenter Chris Rock at the expense of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and culminated with the night’s eventual Oscar winner slapping the comic across the face, and cursing him out from his seat.
Smith was banned from all Motion Picture Academy events for a decade, and several high-profile projects on which he was working were delayed.
However, a fourth Bad Boys movie is still in the works, according to Sony Pictures head Tom Rothman. He told Deadline, “There weren’t any brakes to pump because the car wasn’t moving.”
Incidentally, Jada addressed the slap on her most recent Red Table Talk, noting of Smith and Rock, “My deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have an opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile.”
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