 Will Smith as Howard in “Collateral Beauty.” (Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros. Pictures) Most weeks, I answer a question from Monday’s Act Four Live Chat in the Wednesday edition of this newsletter. This week, we got through all the questions in the chat, but you can read the transcript of that conversation here and submit questions for the first chat of 2017, which will take place on Jan. 9, here. Over at Slate, Aisha Harris has an interesting look at the downward trajectory of Will Smith’s career, focused on the disastrous movies he has made as he chases a particular kind of critical approbation: Each of these films has called into question Smith's self-awareness, and likewise, his reputation as a guaranteed box office draw has all but faded. With the exception of franchise extensions like “Men in Black 3″ and “Suicide Squad,” Smith is no longer consistently pulling “I Am Legend” ($256 million) or “Pursuit of Happyness” ($163 million) numbers. There was a time, perhaps, when you might have been able to point to any number of reasons for a Will Smith movie to have underperformed, like smaller budgets (“Legend of Bagger Vance,” $30 million) or terrible reviews, as Deadline's Anthony D’Alessandro insists is the case with “Collateral Beauty.” But it seems more accurate to say that the main takeaway from its poor turnout is that Smith fatigue has officially set in. Last year's “Concussion” opened around the same time and was also up against a new “Star Wars” movie, and it made $14 million opening weekend, twice as much as this year's schlockfest. Smith received some of the worst reviews of his career for “Wild Wild West” and it still made $113 million.
I don’t have any particular investment in Will Smith for his own sake. I’ve enjoyed some of his movies, particularly the kind of popcorn movies such as “Independence Day” and “Men in Black” that he doesn’t really make anymore. But for years, Smith has been the actor people cited to prove that African Americans could become huge, international stars in defiance of racist so-called conventional wisdom. Of course, it has always been true that Hollywood made active efforts to develop Smith as a massive international box-office draw. But even so, Smith was a reminder that the entertainment industry could develop whatever stars it chose, that it was not powerless before consumers’ tastes but, in fact, created them. I miss the Smith who used to make fun, goofy action movies. And even more than that, it would be a shame if his declining box-office fortunes were used against other actors of color, giving Hollywood an excuse to maintain a monochrome status quo, and wasting other actors’ talents in the process. |
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