Will Smith
Will Smith's Kid Is The Next Karate Kid!
Variety is reporting some pretty fascinating news today: Jaden Smith, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s precocious spawn (seen with his dad in The Pursuit of Happyness) has been tapped to be the next Ralph Macchio (or Hilary Swank!) when the Karate Kid franchise gets new life. Jerry Weintraub, an original producer, is on board as a producer together with Will Smith. Jaden is going to be next seen in next month’s Keanu Reeves-starring remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still (looks like New York will get thrashed again. Terrific.). We smell a dynasty.
Of course, we can think of some immediate problems. read more »
What's the Secret of Seven Pounds?
Despite an incredibly mawkish trailer, we're highly intrigued by Will Smith's latest sure-to-be hit, Seven Pounds. What is the deal with this movie? A month away from its release and we know scarcely anything about it. We were hoping for some answers when Mr. Smith and his co-star Rosario Dawson appeared with Oprah Winfrey late last week, but we had no such luck. The trio discussed Seven Pounds in very superficial terms, hailing it as "dark", "excruciating" and filled with "loss". According to Ms. Winfrey, we have to see it for ourselves. Ugh! Be more vague, Oprah! Thanks to IMDB, here's what we do know: Mr. Smith plays Ben Thomas, an IRS agent who is haunted by his past. In an effort to make amends he tries to help seven strangers, including Ms. Dawson's Emily, a woman with a heart condition. When Ben falls in love with Emily it predictably complicates matters. Much has been made about the twist ending of the film, and there are shockingly few internet spoilers bouncing around cyberspace. So! Here are our best guesses at spoiling it for you. read more »
Is Seven Pounds The New Pay It Forward?
We learned a long time ago to always, always take Will Smith seriously. The man can do anything - fight aliens or zombies, be Ali, love German shepherds, etc. Mr. Smith is on a winning streak: last year I Am Legend made a truckload of money. Ditto last summer's Hancock (which we maintain was secretly Jason Bateman's movie, but whatever). But now we've come upon the trailer for actor's next film, Seven Pounds. The story, as far as we can tell, is about a man who did something really bad (we'll guess murderous drunk driving) and is possibly suicidal over it. But he looks for redemption when he decides to change seven strangers lives. read more »
Look Out New York! I Am Legend Returns
Uh oh. Last December we wrote about how much I am Legend freaked us out (seriously, we think the workout our heart got during the film qualifies as aerobic activity). The movie, based on the 1954 Richard Matheson book and starring Will Smith, laid out a vision of New York City almost completely wiped out of humans after the spread of a virus (thanks a lot, Emma Thompson!). The movie left us wondering if we should move to an apple farm in Vermont or, at the very least, go ahead and get that German shepherd. Since the film made $584 million dollars internationally, it's probably not so surprising that read more »
Single Person's Movie: Bad Boys
It's 2 AM and you awake with a jerk, alone in your fully-lit apartment and still on the couch. On TV, the credits of some movie you've already seen a billion times are scrolling by. It feels like rock bottom. And we know, because we're just like you: single.
Need a movie to keep you company until you literally can't keep your eyes open? Join us tonight when we pass out to Bad Boys (starting @ 12:00 on HBO-Z - TWC 206)
Why we'll try to stay up and watch it: It's hard to remember now, but there was a time way back in the mid-nineties when Will Smith wasn't the biggest star in the world. It's true! In 1995, he was just another successful television actor trying to segue into movies. And what better way to start your career as an A-lister than with a hard-R action/buddy comedy where you get second billing to Martin Lawrence! read more »
Terrence Howard on Men's Fashion: Zipper Cuffs, Custom-Made Suits, and More Color, Please!
When Terrence Howard, the brown-eyed actor with the pencil mustache, arrived Wednesday evening at the subterranean level of Bloomingdale’s for the “Beat of Chic” party thrown by Vanity Fair, he was positively giddy. Thrilled, actually. Tonight he would perform songs from his debut album, Shine Through It, a combination of jazz and soft rock that he recorded with a group of musicians (subtly) called The Band of Kings.
"They greeted me as if I was George Clooney or something!" said Mr. Howard, seeming genuinely surprised by the attention he received upon entering.
"It's really a music lover's album," he told the Daily Transom. "I love flutes and clarinets and the viola. I love intricate arrangements that paint a picture. The music is intended to paint the most beautiful pictures." read more »
Manhattan Weekend Box Office: Sex and the City vs. The Wackness on New York Screens
Things went much as predicted this Fourth of July weekend. New Yorkers fell in love with a homeless wino with a penchant for busting road signs and throwing live whales into the ocean. Hancock landed on top of Manhattan's sales charts with an $850,956 box office showing. It was the same story nationally. Sony's film scored $66 million in ticket sales, putting it way ahead of Wall-E ($33.4 million) and Wanted ($20.6 million). Since first hitting theaters on July 2, Will Smith's jaded superhero has made a total of $107.3 million.
Much like his alky antihero, Smith is a force to be reckoned with. read more »
Administrators at Will Smith's School Say It Doesn't Teach Scientology
Despite employing teachers who are members of the Church of Scientology and using teaching methods developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, administrators at Will Smith's new private school insist that it isn't a Scientology school.
Both Mr. Smith and Jada Pinckett Smith say they do not belong to the church and the New Village School's director, Jacqueline Olivier, told The Los Angeles Times' Carla Rivera that while some of its staff members are Scientologists, the school has no religious affiliation. Members of its staff are also Muslim, Christian, and Jewish.
"We are a secular school and just like all nonreligious independent schools, faculty and staff do not promote their own religions at school or pass on the beliefs of their particular faith to children," she said. read more »
The Expert: Rules of Engagement for Paparazzi, Scientology
Last week, celebrity life coach Patrick Wanis, PhD, wanted to tell our readers his list of the Top Ten Celebrity Meltdowns of 2007.
Today, on the phone with the Daily Transom, he got a little more daring.
First up: recent news that Lindsay Lohan has started to use the paparazzi to her own advantage, setting up and pocketing proceeds from snaps of her own mug.
“I say kudos to her!” he said. “I was thinking last week, Why don’t celebrities just use their brain?” read more »
Scientists Debunk Legend
So no action movie is ever going to take science seriously in its plotting. But I Am Legend, this weekend's top Manhattan movie, sparks some interesting ethical and scientific research issues.
Popular Mechanics decided to take on Will Smith head on: "Between a highly regimented schedule hunting deer in Times Square with his dog, Sam, and swinging a five-iron from atop a naval cruiser, Neville tries to find a way to reverse the virus using his own immune blood even as the Infected are closing in, setting traps and hunting him. But how much of this sure-to-be blockbuster Hollywood film (based on a famous sci-fi novel) is fact, and how much is fiction? read more »
Manhattan Weekend Box Office: Big Willy Style! Who Didn't Go to the Movies This Weekend?
The lethal combination of Will Smith in the tentpole apocalypse-drama I Am Legend (No. 1), the nasty weather enveloping the Northeast, and nothing good happening on TV (which translates to nothing good saved for weekend DVR watching) created one of the healthiest weekends for Hollywood in some time. In Manhattan, who didn’t go to the movies? Each movie, save one, Enchanted (No. 8), averaged over the all-important $10,000 waterline, not to mention the behemoth $1 million-plus take of Legend, which broke the national box office record for a December opening with $76 million in receipts. Yowza! read more »
Will Smith Foundation Donated $20,000 to Scientology
Rumors suggesting that Will Smith is a Scientologist have been swirling and growing as he is seen in public more and more with Tom Cruise, a well-known member of the organization. There was even an item about it on Page Six today. But now, the likelihood that the I Am Legend star is in fact an L. Ron Hubbard disciple seems a bit greater. It turns out the Will Smith Foundation, which gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars to various causes, donated $20,000 to the Church of Scientology’s home-schooling program, called the Hollywood Education and Literacy Program. Recently on Access Hollywood, Mr. Smith reiterated what he told Men’s Vogue, saying, “I was introduced [to] it by Tom and I’m a student of world religion.”
Apocalypse N.Y.C.
I AM LEGEND
Running Time 100 minutes
Written by Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman
Directed by Francis Lawrence read more »
I Am Legend Freaked Me Out!
About 10 minutes into the new Will Smith movie I Am Legend, which opens in Manhattan theaters on Friday, my heart rate went up to about 200 and stayed there for the next hour and a half.
Staggering back out into Times Square's holiday crush from the screening room it seemed we'd just been through an aerobic workout before even facing the crowds of tourists and commuters--surprisingly not zombies.
And the lingering questions were weird ones. Would corn naturally grow in Madison Square Park if humanity were wiped out, or did Will Smith have to plant it there himself? Should I get a German shepherd?
But what really stuck was this: why is Hollywood (and, it sometimes seems, much of the rest of the world the world) so keen to see New York City obliterated? read more »
Will Smith Dumped by Girlfriend, People's Republic of China
We all know how powerful China is becoming, but powerful enough to deflate the ego of one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men? This morning brought the news that China has yet to green-light Will Smith’s latest blockbusting effort, I Am Legend, which opens here on December 14. The apparent snub comes loosely attached to a report that the nation of 1,321,851,888 citizens plans to block all American movies, hoping to boost its own budding film industry. (Let’s also not forget that I Am Legend basically equates populous areas with violence and death; the only haven of solace is found in pastoral Vermont.) “We struggled very, very hard to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of foreign films that are allowed in,” Mr. Smith told reporters in Hong Kong today.
Poor guy can’t get a break. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Smith, 39, admits to being insecure. When he was 15, his first girlfriend broke his heart. “[I]t destroyed my concept of myself,” he told the Wenner music book, adding: “I [thought I] wasn’t good enough.” He then recalls a certain look his grandmother once gave him, the look of someone who’s proud. It affected him to such a degree that he now needs to find it in the faces of all the women in his life—namely, in that of his lovely wife, Jada Pinkett. “Every singe day Jada must have the look. I can’t function if she doesn’t have that look in her eyes.” Ms. Pinkett’s proud-look is probably awesome, but we’d most like to see the look on his first girlfriend’s face when she saw The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for the first time. read more »
Will Smith: Scientology, Bible Almost Identical
In the latest issue of Men’s Vogue, Will Smith tells the book that, after flirting with Buddhism and Hinduism in the past, he has started to study Scientology with Hollywood pal Tom Cruise. Adding to Mr. Smith’s recent revelation, a source apparently told US Weekly that the I Am Legend star’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, 36, has also become interested in the quasi-religion started by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. read more »
A Yankee Fan Pours It On
It's usually a good move in a two-baseball team town to avoid deliberately antagonizing fans of one or the other.
Will Smith, a spokesman for the Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, isn't worried about such niceties. Here he outside City Hall discussing today's Quinnipiac poll showing that most New Yorkers are Yankee fans.
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